Examination of witnesses (Questions 1
- 19)
TUESDAY 14 MARCH 2000
MR RICHARD
HUNT, COUNCILLOR
SUSIE KEMP,
MR MIKE
ROWAN and MS
JANE GLAISTER
Chairman
1. Can I welcome you to the Committee this morning?
It is a follow-up hearing, as far as the Committee is concerned,
into its inquiry into town and country parks. Could I ask you
to identify your team for the record, please?
(Councillor Kemp) Good morning and thank you for inviting
us here this morning. My name is Councillor Susie Kemp. I am the
Vice-Chairman of the Local Government Association Cultural Services
Executive and I have with me this morning Mike Rowan, who is the
Principal Parks Promotions Officer from Hounslow Community Initiative
Partnership and Jane Glaister who is the Head of Culture, Countryside
and Amenity Services with Rotherham. I also have with me Richard
Hunt who is a Policy Officer for the Local Government Association.
2. Do you want to say anything by way of introduction
or are you happy for us to go straight into questions?
(Councillor Kemp) I am happy for you to go straight
into questions.
Mr Cummings
3. It appears as if the Local Government Association
in the past has not been very proactive in promoting parks and
yet, since this Committee instigated the inquiry, it does seem
as if you have acquired some impetus as of late. We understand
that you have formed a Parks and Children's Play Task Group. Could
you tell the Committee who is serving on this particular Task
Group and how you expect it to fulfil its aims and objectives?
(Councillor Kemp) The Task Group has been formed and
we have had a first meeting. We will meet regularly now for probably
about six months until we feel the task has been completed. The
membership of the group is made up of councillors, elected members,
officers and advisers. The aims really are to look at how we can
encourage local authorities to do more with parks and open spaces.
Through this forum, we are also setting up joint seminars, one
in particular with the NSPCC in May. I am delighted to say that
Beverley Hughes will be a keynote speaker there.
(Mr Hunt) The Task Group is a member committee with
councillors of the LGA. They will receive evidence and advice
from a wide range of interested bodies in this particular area
and the Task Group has identified four specific areas that it
will concentrate on within that six month remit, the first of
which is the formation of a remit and guidelines for the proposed
National Parks and Open Spaces Forum, drawing together all of
those interested organisations to raise the profile of parks and
give one voice to many of the recommendations that came out of
the select committee report.
4. Can I ask how you define the word "town"?
I ask that for a specific reason. In a shire county, such as the
one in which I live, hundreds of parks, some of a considerable
size—in the case of my village, some 36 acres—are
administered by parish and town councils, "town" of
course in this instance being anywhere from 8,000 people to 30,000
people. I do not think the smaller towns and parishes are represented
on the Local Government Association. Have you embraced them into
this task force, recognising the important role they play?
(Councillor Kemp) I think you make a very valid point
there. That is something we need to actively look at. I do believe
the LGA is working well with parish councillors through elected
members but that is something we may want to take on board and
develop.
5. What are your basic aims in your promotion
of parks? What do you hope to achieve?
(Councillor Kemp) What we hope to achieve is encouraging
councils throughout the land to do more with parks and open spaces.
(Ms Glaister) As part of Best Value, most local authorities
are reviewing their parks, auditing them and linking them up to
the needs of the local communities. For us to give a holistic
definition of what we hope to achieve I think would be wrong at
this stage, because we are particularly looking at making sure
that local parks are serving the needs of the local communities
and regional parks are serving the needs of the regional communities.
6. Would you tell the Committee what resources
you intend to commit to the National Parks and Open Spaces Policy
Forum?
(Mr Hunt) That will be fully developed once we have
the constitution and know the remit of the forum itself, which
will be brought together by the Parks Task Group in April.
7. Are you having an input into the remit? Could
you tell the Committee what the remit is?
(Mr Hunt) The remit will be developed.
(Councillor Kemp) We have a lot of work to do on our
remit and that is one of the reasons why we have developed the
Task Group to look at that. We have a lot of work to do; we do
not shy away from that fact. I think your observations at the
opening of this session this morning were fair. We will be in
a better position to answer that more fully within the next six
months.
Chairman
8. Could you let us have a note setting out
the progress that has been made in the next six months?
(Councillor Kemp) We would be delighted to.
Mr Cummings
9. Will the Forum have direct contact with ministers?
(Councillor Kemp) Most certainly.
(Mr Hunt) It is relatively early days in the development
of the Forum. All of these issues that you are raising are very
useful and can be accommodated within the Forum.
(Councillor Kemp) We are certainly anxious to see
Beverley Hughes and indeed we have approached her to see her.
We are very pleased that she is coming to be a keynote speaker
at one of our seminars. We do see this as a Forum for lobbying
ministers. It is important.
10. Do you have any particular strategy developed
in order to persuade the government to consider the idea of establishing
a national agency for parks and green spaces?
(Councillor Kemp) Again, to be slightly repetitive
perhaps of the written evidence we have put to you, one of the
reasons for putting together task groups and forums is to act
as a united lobbying front for such an agency. We do see it as
an important move forward for the development of parks and open
spaces.
(Mr Rowan) The LGA would like to be an advocate for
parks. It is drawing together other interested bodies who also
support this idea of an agency. Approaches have been made to ILAM
and also to the Urban Parks Forum. It is not just the LGA; it
is lots of other groups as well banding together saying, "This
is something we firmly believe in and want to commit to."
11. What benefits would such an agency deliver?
(Mr Rowan) The best example I can give you is if you
look at what happened with the Countryside Agency. As soon as
it was announced that there was a new Countryside Agency, the
first thing it did was become an advocate for the countryside
and started putting out statements. The one thing that I would
like to see is a strong advocate for parks. We see policies being
written in other areas and parks are either forgotten or are an
add-on. You can very easily detect where they have just been slipped
in. What would be really good is if there was somebody who, every
time there was any sort of policy that broadly touched parks,
said, "Where do parks feature in this? Someone has forgotten
parks".
12. Can you give any specific examples to the
Committee of how you see parks being championed in the future?
(Mr Rowan) The obvious one would be to try and look
at funding. What you have at the moment is the heritage sites
being funded reasonably okay. That means lots of authorities with
parks that do not fall into that group do not get the funding.
There is the New Opportunities Fund, and hopefully that will help
address that situation, but it is someone to guide the smaller
parks that have just been forgotten or that money has been taken
away from to fund bigger projects. It needs some sort of clear
guidance and some assistance on a national level, not just on
a local level.
(Ms Glaister) I think there is an issue about looking
at the needs of the future of parks and what people in the 21st
century will need in terms of parks development and parks delivery
of one sort or another.
Chairman
13. That is drawing out what they will need
in the future but what are you actually looking at? How do you
expect parks to change?
(Ms Glaister) It is difficult to say until we have
consulted some of the communities and looked at some of the plans
for the future as well. As part of Best Value, where we are consulting
with communities and looking at the future generations' needs,
that is where the planning process for future development of parks
will come in. This is something that has not been done strategically
across the nation as a whole.
Mr Cummings
14. When you submit that memorandum in six months'
time, will you incorporate a section on what involvement, if any,
you have had with parish and town councils?
(Councillor Kemp) Yes.
Mr Brake
15. Do the LGA have a role to play in championing
parks?
(Councillor Kemp) Yes, I believe we have. We have
explained some of the reasons why we feel that. One of the big
responsibilities that we have is giving help and encouragement
to councils and to see the need for developing parks strategies.
We are very pleased to see the local cultural strategies and we
see those as a vehicle through which councils can use their development
of strategies for parks and to embrace the whole cultural issue.
(Ms Glaister) In terms of the development of local
cultural strategies, some of those local authorities that have
started to develop them are looking at bringing parks into that
framework. I think this is an extremely positive way forward to
make sure that there are those linkages across all the cultural
and sport remit and how parks fit in with communities and developing
those sorts of activities. I think it is also extremely important
that we see parks in the development of regional cultural strategies
which are due to be published by the end of this year. Again,
there is the potential for a black hole which parks are falling
into because they are not necessarily picked up by local or regional
cultural strategies or a national agency of one sort or the other.
I do hope that they will be pulled into all those cultural strategies.
16. On the subject of black holes, it would
appear that in relation to the evidence that the LGA have supplied
to the Environment Select Committee on the Urban White Paper there
is a black hole in relation to parks in that you do not mention
parks. Why is that?
(Mr Hunt) In part it is probably a timetabling issue
within the LGA but, that aside, the response goes into detail
about the cultural sector's input into the urban regeneration.
Parks, in the LGA's submission, come within that reference to
the cultural services sector. We do have an opportunity now to
add to our lobbying campaign with regard to the Urban White Paper
and parks issues will obviously be emphasised within that lobbying
campaign.
17. You do actually recognise, although you
did not make reference to it in your submission, that parks have
a role to play in regenerating urban areas?
(Councillor Kemp) Yes, absolutely. I would reinforce
that the LGA takes parks and open spaces immensely seriously.
That is why we are undertaking the work that we are doing. When
you see the outcomes at the end of the six months, I think you
will be very pleased with the progress that we have been able
to make.
18. As you will know, the government is setting
up a new database for parks. Have you any evidence that local
authorities have been looking again at some of their statistical
data and updating it with a view to providing perhaps more accurate
information for this database?
(Ms Glaister) We certainly have in Rotherham where
we have done a full audit of both our urban parks and country
parks. I am aware that there are other local authorities working
on this.
(Mr Rowan) For Best Value anyway, this audit is going
to be taking place. The important thing is to track what is happening
with the money because it is going to come down to how much money
is being invested. If we are not careful, we will be managing
decline. With the best will in the world, you can be making efficiencies
and doing what you can do with the money in the best possible
way but, at the end of the day, you might not be meeting the expectations
of the local community because their expectations are going to
exceed what we are able to do and that is a slight concern.
19. Presumably, you would like greater priority
to be given to spending on parks?
(Mr Rowan) Absolutely.
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