Thanks a million MoS!
68 ‘Pocket Parks’ to share extra £1.35m from the Government in the wake of our campaign to rescue Britain’s green spaces
VITAL green spaces from Northumberland to Cornwall will this week get a share of more than £1 million in the wake of The Mail on Sunday’s Save Our Parks campaign.
Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick is set to unveil 68 ‘Pocket Parks’ up and down the country which will get up to £ 25,000 to transform neglected urban areas or create completely new green zones for their communities.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal the first three winners – Gaydon Meadow in Warwickshire, Edinburgh Road Rocket Park in Chesterfield and Clapham Recreation Ground in West Sussex.
Last night, Stuart Ray – a parish councillor in the West Sussex village – said that he and his colleagues were ‘ over the moon’ with the cash award and paid tribute to this newspaper’s campaign to protect vital green spaces.
Two years ago, we revealed how playgrounds were being lost at the rate of nearly two a week as they fell victim to neglect, vandalism or property developers. The broadcaster and gardener Alan Titchmarsh backed our campaign to Save Our Parks.
And now, as part of a ‘ green spaces’ fightback, this week Mr Jenrick will announce the list of ‘ Pocket Parks’ across the country which will benefit from a funding boost of £1.35 million.
In addition the Communities Secretary has stressed just how important parks and green areas are for ‘ our mental and physical health, for helping us connect with nature and each other, and as beautiful, relaxing places’.
V owing to champion those green lungs, Mr Jenrick, 38, said: ‘With three daughters of my own, I have spent many an hour r at my local park, as I did as a child with my parents.
‘Some are serene, some e are noisy; some are magi- cal wildernesses, others s planned and manicured.
‘That’s why The Mail on n Sunday’s Save Our Parks s campaign is so important.’
He also spoke of how parks were ‘ peculiarly British, from bandstands to bowling greens, and their existence reflects the national obsession with gardening we inherited from the Victorians’. He added: ‘ Out of the smallest Pocket Park can grow the seeds of something we all need and value – a sense of space.’ The Government programme is designed to help community groups to transform small local parks and plots of land that have fallen into disrepair.
Mr Jenrick said ‘ imaginative schemes’ such as t he ones in Warwickshire, Chesterfield and Clapham, West Sussex, ‘combine an impressive commitment to boosting biodiversity and wildlife with improved facilities and better access’.
Reacting to the funding news yesterday, Clapham parish council chairman Mr Ray said: ‘ We are absolutely over the moon because we lost our playground when the local council said there was not enough money to take care of it. Now we are going to have a fantastic new focal point for the village and somewhere for the kids to play.
‘We are really pleased that we are getting the money from the Pocket Parks scheme and can’t thank The Mail on Sunday enough for your campaign.’
This week’s announcement will mean that over 350 local projects have now benefited, including a play and exercise facility for Thorplands estate in Northampton where the local community have transformed a disused and derelict green space, installing new play equipment and outdoor gym apparatus.