Firstly, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has subscribed to Future North - almost 400 of you have now signed up to receive these regular updates!
Please share this with others who you think will find it interesting, or let me know via replying or commenting if you have any topics you think I should look into.
Prompted mostly by the good weather and the summer, I’ve been reflecting on the importance of green space. And being a father to a very busy two year old, means I’m always on the look out for a good playground - particularly one with a slide.
But parks are important for everyone, breaking up urban environments and giving people a place to relax, have a kick about etc.
Aire Park, Leeds
Parks and open space are integral to the sense of place and identity in any place. It is hard to imagine New York City without Central Park, or Ilkley without its moor.
In the industrial era, providing parks became a focus of campaigners looking to improve the health of workers and cities. Over time this movement led to the development of examples like Peel Park in Salford (1846) and Birkenhead Park (1847), where councils were looking to provide parks to improve their areas.
With the Public Health Act 1848, Parliament passed legislation to allow local health boards to ‘provide, maintain, lay out, plant, and improve premises for the purpose of being used as public walks or pleasure grounds’.
Parks were now a key focus of local governments looking to create a nice space for their residents and workers to relax. Even the aforementioned Ilkley Moor is owned by Bradford Council, having been acquired by its predecessor the Ilkley Board of Health in 1893.
Bringing us to the modern era, I’ve been trying to find good data on access to green space. Data from Fields in Trust on access to playgrounds is interesting - and resonated with me as a parent.
Depressingly, around one third of children lack a nearby playground (within a 10 minute walk). Regions in the North are some of the worst in the country in this regard, with 45% of kids in the North East not having easy access to a playground compared to an England average of 32%. The figures for the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber are 37% and 38% respectively.
And no regions in the North meet the minimum standards on open space specified by the Trust. It’s not clear this is an urban/rural issue either given the variation in the regions below.
Fields in Trust - minimum standards on accessible space
Source: Fields in Trust. Their minimum standard is defined roughly as 2.4ha of accessible green space for every 1,000 people.
Parks have faced financial difficulties in common with all local government services. Analysis from 2022 suggests a real terms cut on spending on parks was concentrated in the most deprived areas, likely as a result of local government spending cuts being concentrated in the most deprived areas. Updating this analysis to now, spending on parks has still not recovered to 2010 levels.1
Newcastle attempted to hand over control of its parks to a charity in 2019 called ‘Urban Green Newcastle’. The intention was to protect the 33 parks under its control and promote their use.2
However, the decision had to be reversed so that the parks would be controlled by the council again. Setting the pandemic to one side, it looks like the charity wanted to use the parks for more events whereas the council (under pressure from residents) was resistant.
Trade-offs between finances, events and residents like these should be the very essence of local democracy. And it is obviously bad for local democracy that councils were forced by austerity to develop such measures to try to protect their parks.
Looking to the future, as urban areas are redeveloped, local authorities are building in new green spaces in city centres.
In recent weeks, I’ve had the chance to have a look at the new Aire Park in Leeds (which is currently quite small but is expected to expand) and Mayfield Park close to Manchester Piccadilly station. Both the parks already have or are building in play areas for children. And both are examples of their local councils working with the private sector to develop mixed use developments on brownfield sites.
Mayfield Park, Manchester
If local government finances begin to turn a corner and the regeneration of cities continues, hopefully we will see a renaissance in urban parks.3
As in the past, local councils should be empowered to provide more play areas and green spaces for communities. Looking to a future where not only are we blessed with more accessible outdoor space on the hills and moors of our national parks, but also with an increasing number of parks and playgrounds in villages, towns and cities too.
I think the analysis in the Guardian article was based on English LA spending statistics on ‘open space’ and ‘recreation and sport’ - which totalled to £1.03bn in 20-21 (in 20-21 terms) which matches to the chart in the article. Looking at the most recent 2024-25 figures for these areas, spending totals to £1.27bn (in 24-25 terms). This means that local government spending on parks etc. is still significantly below where it was in 2010 - especially if you updated all the figures into 24-25 terms to account for inflation. My very rough calculation suggests parks spending in 2010 would have been worth about £1.6bn now.
Full disclosure, my wife was involved in the early setup of UGN - but all the research here is mine.
Let me know if you have your own favourite parks around the North (or beyond). Especially open to new ideas on where to take our toddler too!
Remember seeing years ago a rank ordering of UK cities by some kind of green space to people ratio and Manchester was one of the lowest. Even that number was probably flattering as the really big green spaces are out on the edge. Definitely feels like the appetite for parks is changing, although, again I remember seeing the councils strategy is to hold the ratio constant rather than improve it as the city’s population continues to grow. Worth noting Manchester/Salford seem focused on putting new green space in the Irwell, Irk and Medlock valleys to create 2nd order flood alleviation.