Land Trust responds to the London Assembly’s Park Life report

Parks and Green Spaces charity welcomes London Assembly’s Park life report and recommendations to the London Mayor.

The Land Trust welcomes the London assembly’s Park life report published this week by the Environment Committee following the committee’s public consultation in December 2016, in which the Land Trust responded.

The Land Trust’s key messages included:

• The need for leadership and political will to champion green space
• Ensure the planning process recognises and priorities green space
• Considering different funding mechanisms, including the Trust model
• Taking a strategic approach to embedding green space into communities
• Creating and maintaining green space within the built environment

The Land Trust is pleased with a number of the Environment Committee’s recommendations, which include:

• Appointing a Green Infrastructure Commissioner or Champion
• Promoting the concept of green infrastructure at city level, to aid planners, developers and other stakeholders
• Provide support for exploring the various funding models, (including the Trust model)
• Incorporate green infrastructure in Mayoral strategies and the London Plan
• Support green space managers to promote volunteering and engage the public

One element which the Land Trust remains cautious with is that in the pursuit of exploring alternative income streams, there is an over reliance on the ability of parks to generate income and the potential risk of over-commercialisation of these vital green spaces. Parks and green spaces vary enormously and whilst some lend themselves to such commercial opportunities, others still provide a vital role to society and the environment, but are of less interest to commercial ventures and without long term funding these could easily become vulnerable affecting access to parks and green spaces across society.

Overall, the Land Trust is pleased with this report, which clearly recognises and acknowledges the important role of well-funded parks and green spaces, using methods, such as natural capital accounting which can assist and as a result, the report has made some well-rounded recommendations for the Mayor and his team to consider taking forward.

As a private organisation, which manages parks and public green spaces for the benefit of local communities, including Greenwich Ecology Park in London, we would be pleased to work with GLA and the Mayoral teams to raise awareness of our own funding mechanisms which provide long term funding for managing parks.