Memorandum by Jane Stoneham, Director,
The Sensory Trust with Dr Tony Kendle, Department of Horticulture
and Landscape, the University of Reading (TCP 21)
The Sensory Trust is a charity dedicated to
promoting access for people with disability or disadvantage to
the natural world. We interpret access in the widest sense to
mean not just the provision of physical adaptations, as important
as these are, but also access to a full range of opportunities
including the chance to participate in environmental care, learning
and stewardship. We have a particular concern for the less tangible
barriers that sometimes prevent people from using the opportunities
that exist.
In this submission therefore we would like to
put an emphasis on exploring some of the more subtle issues of
quality in park provision. These issues are not only relevant
to people with disabilities but will also apply to those who,
for example, are elderly or who have young families, and will
be of benefit to a large and growing proportion of society (at
least 20 per cent of the adult population).
The importance of town and country parks can
not be underestimated. One factor in the decline of urban parks
in recent decades has been a judgment by planners that greater
mobility, wealth and leisure time will enable people to have more
ready access to the countryside and to experience the very highest
quality natural and cultural landscapes. This policy could not
adequately meet the needs of people whose lifestyle and opportunities
are limited by problems of physical or mental disability, poverty,
lack of time, of a conjunction of these.
Country parks have had the great benefit of
some stewardship from the government through agencies of the DETR,
notably the Countryside Commission. These have provided a valuable
focal point and form of managed access provision. They sometimes
have good public transport, or facilities for parking, together
with a range of high quality physical access modifications. However
more can be done.
In the Sensory Trust we have identified that
a lack of confidence and an uncertainty about what challenges
will be encountered present some of the main barriers to use of
natural sites by disabled people. We have published a Directory
of suitable sites that includes many country parks, but we would
argue that the need for this represents a failing in the actual
provision. A core role of country parks is clearly to provide
a gateway and access to a rural experience for those who, for
whatever reason, are unable to access the wider countryside. Each
site should fully consider the implications of this role. The
pioneering work by bodies such as the Countryside Commission needs
to be consolidated and extended.
It is however Town parks that represent both
the most potential and the greatest cause for concern. By definition
urban sites represent the main opportunity for the greatest number
of people to have contact with nature, particularly for people
with limited mobility. Although some need work, and in particular
provision for disabled parking, many parks have excellent public
transport provision and a good path framework. We have inherited
an infrastructure of parks of priceless value and their documented
and visible decline represents a wasted opportunity of tragic
proportions.
Cost saving exercises over many decades have
gradually removed many of thee features of greatest landscape
interest. This is akin to saving money in the National Gallery
by not having paintings. The infrastructure still remains, shabby
in places but still sound, but the incentive for visiting has
gradually disappeared. This in turn initiates a spiral of decline
where people visit less, and the spaces begin to feel more threatening
and become more open to social abuse. At their best parks act
as a crucible where social relationships can be developed and
extended; when abandoned they can be locations where existing
fears and prejudices become enforced.
One contributing factor for this decline is
the failure by government to explicitly recognise and support
the full range of users and uses that these parks must serve.
Sports Councils and other sporting bodies have for many years
represented the only clear lobby and target setting sector associated
with urban land. Local authority money has therefore been directed
into areas that have actually served a small proportion of the
urban population and that have aggravated the problem of declining
use.
Inevitably disabled and older people, but also
many other sectors of the population, are interested in more passive
uses. A successful future for urban parks means making a provision
for multiple uses from the provision of play, garden areas, areas
of biodiversity and wildlife interest and social interaction.
It also means recognising that they can be the setting for a range
of activities focused on education and the development of social
responsibility.
There are positive examples that illustrate
how parks may evolve to suit these needs.
— The benefits of sport and exercise
can not be underestimated, but these benefits can and must be
extended to a wider a population. Government health policy is
moving towards an emphasis on holistic approaches to maintaining
health rather than trying to cure sickness. Urban parks can play
a key role in provision of doctor-prescribed health walks and
also provide less formal ways of encouraging people to maintain
activity and personal well-being.
— The move towards sustainability and
implementation of Agenda 21 requires that partnerships develop
between government and local people, and that the latter are encouraged
and enabled to take their own responsibility for environmental
care. Some pioneering Local Agenda 21 projects are building such
partnerships focused on the stewardship of urban parks.
Parks need funding, of course, but more than
that they need a vision and a commitment from government. They
need an explicit recognition of the many key roles they can play
in helping to forge the society we want and need for the next
century.
We look forward to seeing the results of this
Inquiry, and would be pleased to be involved in any future consultation
exercise.
April 1999
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