Not enough parks and green spaces, says charity

The charity, Fields in Trust, has found that there is not as much publicly accessible green space as in many other towns and cities.

The charity Fields in Trust, which has been protecting parks and recreation grounds for nearly a hundred years, has analysed the amount of publicly accessible green space provision per head of population for every local authority and classified Norwich overall as having ‘less than minimum standard’. However, it also finds that no resident in the city is more than a ten-minute walk from public green space .

The Green Space Index is the Fields in Trust’s annual barometer of publicly accessible park and green space provision in Great Britain. Fields in Trust has calculated the amount of park and publicly accessible green space , notably parks, public gardens and playing fields, ranges from 0.00 square metres per person in Sewell to 68.16 square metres per person in Eaton. Overall, the Trust estimates the amount of park and green space per person Norwich as 0.57sq metres or 6 square feet. It has given Norwich a Green Space Index score of 0.02, below the charity’s score of 1.0 to denote a minimum standard of provision.    

Green Party city councillor Denise Carlo said: 

“Green open space is essential for people’s wellbeing, for biodiversity and for cooling the city as the climate heats up. The city council should require developers to provide green space with new homes, but it’s instead been allowing developers to overload parks created in the 1920s and 30s and other public historic green spaces, such as Chapelfield Park, Gildencroft and Heigham Park which are under intense pressure from high numbers of users.” 

Denise added:

“Apart from the Riverside Walk, no new public green spaces have been created in the city centre since Castle Green thirty years ago, despite the large increase in people living in the heart of the city (4). The Green Space Index findings should be treated with caution as they exclude wild parts of Mousehold Heath, Gildencroft and local nature reserves, and also, residents in parts of Sewell are able to walk to Wensum or Waterloo Park: nonetheless they contain a message to policy makers on the need to include public green space in major new developments such as Anglia Square.”