From New York to Ealing, local parks are being given a new lease of life
Many very rural places offer very little public access. I was talking to people from Haworth and Boston about their respective community challenges – both have a “Central Park” not of the scale of the one in New York, bit both of which are an on-going challenge. This article, which is relevant to many a rural authority provides food for thought in this context. It tells us:
This week alone hundreds of thousands of people gathered in their local public parks to watch fireworks, light sparklers and eat toffee apples with family and friends in celebration of bonfire night.
But the financial future of parks looks rather less bright. Public sector funding for parks is projected to fall by 60% or more over the next decade. That means parks, cared for and maintained in their current form, just can’t go on.
This isn’t just about the grass being cut less often or fewer border plants. A return to parks being no-go zones at dusk, as has happened in so many communities during the last recession, is a real fear.
So too is the loss of millions of pounds worth of investment to revitalise under-used and unloved green spaces over the last 15 years. Tinkering round the edges won’t cut it. We need to innovate.
Nesta has teamed up with the Heritage Lottery Fund and Big Lottery Fund to launch a £1m fund to back parks innovators. Anyone can enter an idea and win funding by coming up with a new business models for public parks.
Our hope is to back a small number of parks innovators to test new business models. But more importantly, we want to find sustainable models of generating income that others can copy, to ensure our parks thrive well into the 22nd century.