The impact of urban climate change could be reduced by increasing the amount of green space in ciites such as London.

Temperatures in urban areas are currently up to 6°c higher than rural areas and more should be done to alleviate this growing problem, according to an RICS information paper.

Current climate change predictions suggest that summer temperatures in the UK may rise by up to 3.5°c by 2050 and urban areas are particularly susceptible. However, by sustainably increasing the amount of green space and planting vegetation on roofs and walls across London, the impact of the ‘urban heat island effect’ could be reduced by as much as 2.5°c.

Green space in London has been eroded over the course of many years as playing fields, gardens and other green space have made way for development as pressure on land has increased.

Although pressure on land supply in London continues to be intense, the capital has more open green space than many other world cities in its London Parks, community gardens and public spaces such as Hampstead Heath and Blackheath and much is already being done by government in London to combat the heat island effect, including a ‘green grid’ across the capital.

Gardens do now have some protection from development and there are plans for large scale tree planting in the capital. However the scale of the issue is immense. Planning to avoid the worst of the predicted urban temperature increases is essential as removing just ten per cent of the green space from an urban area can result in maximum temperatures increasing by as much as 7°c.

Extracts taken from http://www.rics.org/site/scripts/press_article.aspx?pressReleaseID=521

Identifying time zones

For example, at the beginning of the day you will undoubtedly have an early morning rush of dog walkers, commuters who use the park as a shortcut to work and perhaps joggers. This is the first “time zone”.

This will be followed by a more leisurely group of users. This group will probably linger and spend more time in your parks. Next two further groups of users – the afternoon crowd and the evening crowd.

In your own parks there may be other time zones and therefore user groups, all with distinctly different needs. Crucially, providing services for these groups and getting your message across that your parks are part of the community’s healthy lifestyle must be moderated to fit the time the user has to absorb your message and their attention span.

At the same time, your maintenance activities and regime must be timed so that they do not interfere with the use of the park. Too often, users are confronted by mass tractor mowing and made to feel like intruders. The application of a park life strategy will reduce, if not eliminate, this untenable treatment of your customers. 

Many parks services are beginning to develop poster and notice board campaigns to promote the benefits that their service provides. However, a one-size-fits-all message and style will fail the test of the park life strategy.

The key principles of the park life strategy are:

- Identify the time zone of the user for whom you wish to provide services or want to influence.

- Identify the uses that are associated with each time zone group.

- Determine how you can best meet their expectations and maintain the environment around them with minimal disruption to their usage.

- Finally, identify what messages you can reasonably expect to get them to absorb on each visit.

Long-term planning

It is a much easier task to prepare a service for a user whose requirements you know about than for some wide-ranging generalist notion of a user that few people actually match.

This approach will also inform your maintenance activity because you can then ensure that activities such as grass cutting do not clash with your users’ desire to use the park. 

It is clear that your park life should not be the preserve of the daylight hours or just for the members of the community who are able or willing to visit between dawn and dusk. By taking the time zone approach and planning for usage across a longer period of time you begin to increase the number of new users who may visit the park.

Key park life activities include:

- Astronomy, because clear skies and opportunities for uninterrupted observation are readily found in the middle of reasonably-sized parks.

- Night walks and talks for insomniacs and shift workers.

- Theatre group performances that treat nature as the scene changer.

- Solace – making the park a place for contemplation and reflection.

- Nature study of nocturnal creatures.

Many of our parks are underused for much of the time. By identifying the gaps in usage you can gain access to a new group of potential supporters and calculate the value added across a wider range of activities and people, thereby increasing the net worth of the investment that the community makes to your service.

Key outputs from a park life strategy are:

- Better coordination of staff with users of the park – and greater safety for users as a consequence.

- A reduction in major maintenance services interfering with users’ enjoyment of the park.

- A decrease in the damage caused by too many people using the park at one time.

- An increase in the enjoyment of the park user by spreading use over a longer period of time.

Look again at your park life and ask yourself: “How will I defend the service when the next round of budget reductions is sought?” The answer is to position your service at the heart of the community’s wants. And this involves developing a park life strategy.

Extract from Horticulture Week by Sid Sullivan

The Natural Environment White Paper, published today, includes proposals to give communities new powers to designate protected green areas as part of local neighbourhood plans.

Local communities will be able to earmark for special consideration local ‘green space’ land – whether its value is in its natural beauty, its historic resonances, its recreational value, its tranquillity or its importance as wildlife habitat.

The recent National Ecosystem Assessment concluded that the health benefits of living close to a green space are worth up to £300 per person per year. Urban green spaces can affect house values, mental wellbeing, air and water quality, carbon absorption and can provide natural flood defences and drainage. More information on the UK National Ecosystem Assessment can be found here uknea.unep-wcmc.org/ (external link).

Two of the main ambitions of the planning system are protecting the natural environment and promoting sustainable growth. Ministers believe these are mutually compatible aims and they will form the basis of Government planning policy reforms. Protected sites should complement and not undermine investment in homes, jobs and other essential services.

A new National Planning Policy Framework that will consolidate nearly 900,000 words of unwieldy national planning policies into one concise, easy to use document setting out the Government’s key economic, social and environmental objectives will be published shortly.

Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles said:

“Green spaces are incredibly important to local life which is why this government is committed to protecting them. These are special areas that invigorate communities like local beauty spots, wildlife habitats or even local playing fields so important for healthy activities.

“Promoting economic growth and protecting our natural environment are the two ambitions of our planning reforms. By giving local people greater control over much loved green spaces we are placing the strongest emphasis on the protection of the environment and local communities’ interests. We are also making sure that what we decide today leaves a positive and sustainable legacy for future generations.”

Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said:

“Giving communities the power to protect green spaces in towns and cities important to their local environment will benefit the wellbeing of people and wildlife. The natural environment matters to all of us, we all have an interest in protecting it and making it better. Working together we can be the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than we found it.

“I hope that the Government’s White Paper will inspire more people to enjoy nature from an early age and pass that passion for the environment down through the generations. That would be a legacy well worth leaving.”

Neighbourhood planning is a key reform that will give local people a real voice in deciding the look and feel of development in their area; from determining the parks, playing fields and beauty spots as well as the location of shops, offices and schools or setting green standards of design for new housing.

Publishing details of the green space designation ahead of the formal consultation on the National Planning Policy Framework gives communities the certainty that the planning system will continue to protect the natural environment in their area. The power would be introduced by April 2012.

The test more accurately replicates the body’s processes when it ingests polluted soil than current tests.

Current methods for assessing the risk posed by contaminated land to human health may overestimate the amount of pollutant which can be absorbed by the gut safely.

This is because they use the total soil concentration rather than the amount of chemical that is released during digestion.

These inaccurate results can mean significant additional clean-up costs for companies; it is estimated that the unnecessary removal of pollutants from contaminated land is costing the construction industry an extra £140m ] £210m per annum.

It is expected that the new test will help to determine that more brownfield sites are fit for redevelopment, allowing for more houses to be built in areas less damaging to the environment.

University of Reading’s Department of Geography and Environmental Science say that their model will provide better data for companies and allow them to make more informed decisions on remediation.

The Department’s Dr Chris Collins said: “The test will also help local government determine if there is genuine risk from sites which may have low levels of residual pollution, such as allotments.

“Currently the new test is being used by three industrial customers and a local council.”

The research was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council and is published on the Environmental Science and Technology Journal’s website.

Chairman of Warndon Parish Council Ray Morris said there was a risk that “piecemeal” plan for housing developments on the former Tolladine Golf Course could gradually destroy the green space.

He said: “These plans are a big concern.

“This is a big, green open space – the biggest in the city – and if people nibble away at it, before you know it, it’s full of houses. I think it will happen.”

Fellow parish councillor Ted Holloway said: “We made it quite clear that we require, or would like to have seen, a development plan for the whole course.

“We asked for a development plan so we could assess if these new plans are piecemeal or wholesale. They’re trying to piecemeal without an overall plan.

“I’d like to see a scheme for the whole course.”

As previously reported in your Worcester News, developer Tustin Homes submitted plans for 11 four-bedroom houses on the site of the former golf course clubhouse and car park at the end of 2009, but the plans were withdrawn.

In November, it submitted new plans to Worcester City Council through a different agent for nine rustic red-brick houses.

Worcester City Council’s planning committee is due to make a decision on that application on Friday, January 21.

But Worcester city councillor Lucy Hodgson, who represents Warndon South, assured the parish council that the whole golf course was not listed in the council’s five-year housing land monitor.

She said: “As far as I’m concerned, this application is a ribbon development.

“The main part of the golf course is classed as green open space and is not listed in the council’s five-year list.”

Worcestershire county councillor Andy Roberts also assured councillors plans did not conform to the city development plan.

Article found on Worcester news, available here

The Open Spaces Society, which campaigns for the protection of greens and commons, said the Localism Bill, due for its second reading in the House of Commons next week, offers little protection for green spaces.

The OSS general secretary Kate Ashbrook said: “One of the bill’s most important aspects, the care and future of open spaces, lacks any clear idea of what is needed and is a muddle of conflicting provisions.”

The campaign group’s case officer Nicola Hodgson, who analysed the proposed law’s provisions, added: “The bill requires every local authority to compile and maintain a list of land of community value in its area, to remain on the list for up to five years, but inclusion on the list appears to offer little protection to the land.

“If the owner of such land wishes to dispose of it, a community interest group must be given an opportunity to bid.

“We cannot see how the bill provides any new protection for open spaces which local people enjoy for informal recreation. Indeed, once land is on the list, the owner may be encouraged to consider selling it for development.

“The purpose of the list of land of community value is not clear. Why does land only remain on the list for five years, and what happens to it after that time?  What protection is offered to land on the list?”

She pointed out that land can be nominated for the list by others, but the local authority will decide whether it is included.  Ms Hodgson questioned the ability of local authorities to come to impartial decisions on land they own themselves. She also said it might prove impossible for locals to afford to buy land under the provisions.

“If the owner of listed land wishes to dispose of it, a community interest group must be given the opportunity to bid for it, but there is little chance that the group can raise sufficient funds to buy the land, especially if it is at market value based on any obtainable planning permission,” she said.

“We fear the bill’s provision for payment of compensation to landowners will encourage them to put land of community value on the market.”

The bill does not mention the Government’s proposed new designation to protect green areas of particular importance to local communities which was heralded in the business plans for the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Ms Hodgson said: “We have called on MPs to ask these and other questions at the second reading debate on Monday 17 January. This bill needs to be rewritten if it is to offer any protection to open spaces which are loved and enjoyed by local people, and if it is to enable and empower those people to play a part in their protection.”

Article found on Grough available here

Bristol Liberal Democrats were jeered, interrupted and heckled by the public as the Cabinet agreed plans to sell more than 40 parks and green spaces across the city.

The plan aims to fund improvements to up to 200 Bristol parks by selling off green spaces over a 20-year period.

A public consultation was held to gather evidence and views, but Southville Green Party councillor Tess Green has spoken out after documents were released following a delayed response to a Freedom of Information request from Stockwood resident Pete Goodwin.

“A quick look at some of the sites shows just how weak some of the recommendations were; there are too many assumptions made, evidence is disregarded, and public opinion seems to be something to be overcome, not to be weighed up as part of the decision.

“What we’re left with is an over-hasty decision bulldozed through on the flimsiest of evidence, that will lose much valued
green space without any great benefit to the remaining parks. If only the other parties had listened to the Greens before they agreed this disastrous strategy to pay for park improvements.

“People who value these spaces will now have to defend them using the planning process, or other legal moves.”

Her fellow Green Mr Goodwin, who had put up a case against selling the Stockwood sites, added: ”With no way of knowing why particular sites were judged as low value, it was very difficult to challenge the plans. That’s why I lodged the Freedom of Information request. The information should have been made public much earlier, certainly in time for the decisions in council. The legal deadline was November 19, and the documents themselves date from summer of 2009, but it’s only been released now. There can’t be any excuse for that delay.

“It appears that a few Parks officers were set impossible targets, then had to cope with the massive public reaction to
their proposals while still following a political mandate. The whole exercise has been a travesty.”

Council leader Barbara Janke said at the end of last year that the plans would be of “great benefit to the city”, and a long-term investment into the city’s great parks and green spaces.

A Bristol City Council spokesman told Bristol24-7: “In assessing these sites, officers sought the services of professionals in the council and external stakeholders. From the council, at least 55 officers provided information covering at least 12 disciplines.

“This has included park management, development management, strategic planning, property services, legal services, sports services, pollution control, nature conservation officers, urban design, landscape design, tree officers and archaeology.  This assessment resulted in 97% of green spaces not being considered for disposal.

“On the consultation there was a very detailed and thorough consultation process. In total at least 125 consultation meetings were held across the city over an 18-month period. In each of our 14 Neighbourhood Partnerships, officers held at least three meetings specifically on elements of the Parks and Green Spaces Strategy in relation to that neighbourhood.”

Article found on Bristol247 available here

Open Spaces Society boss Kate Ashbrook, who two years ago shared a place in a green list with the Queen and was dubbed the ‘high-priestess of the countryside’, welcomed the monarch’s recognition of the importance of the country’s numerous open spaces for sport and exercise.

The Queen will say in her Christmas Day broadcast: “In the parks of towns and cities, and on village greens up and down the country, countless thousands of people every week give up their time to participate in sport and exercise of all sorts, or simply encourage others to do so.”

OSS general secretary Ms Ashbrook said: “We have long argued that village greens are of fundamental importance to local communities, in town and country. We are delighted that the Queen recognises this too.

“Yet these precious open spaces are under constant threat of development and encroachment.

“You can register land as a green if it has been used by local people for 20 years, for informal sport and recreation without being stopped and without asking permission. Once registered, the land is safe from development.

“So our Christmas message is: get out and there and enjoy your green, and if it is not registered, make it your New Year resolution to get on with it.”

Article found on Grough, available here