To round off a year of thoroughly mixed messages on the value of parks, the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) launched the “ambitious programme of pocket parks” promised in the 2015 general election manifesto. £1.5m is available to fund up to 100 pocket parks across England. However, at an underwhelming £15k per park, I’m not sure what this definition of ‘ambitious’ is.
A grant of up to £10k can be made for capital works, with up to £5k to pay for the professional services of the landscape architects, garden designers, arboriculturalists and others on whose expertise a well-planned space depends. Applying for a grant couldn’t be simpler. It just needed a group within an officially recognised area of high urban deprivation to decide on a site, form a constitution, obtain the local authority’s approval to develop the site, consult with the community and local partners, survey and plan the site, secure match funding, and produce a sustainability plan. A whole month was allowed for this, so no rush. If successful, the site then just needs to be granted Local Greenspace Designation and listed as an asset of community value in 2016, and to achieve the Green Flag Community Award in 2017.
What could be simpler?
Manhattan transfer
Originating in New York City in the 1960s as a respite from the concrete jungle, the pocket park popularised the idea of the urban mini-oasis. The DCLG seems keen to sell us a bit of the American Dream with this initiative. As their press release gushes: “A slice of the Big Apple coming to a neighbourhood near you … some of England’s most unloved spaces will be transformed into Manhattan-style ‘pocket parks’… “, citing New York’s renowned Paley Park as an example.
Alas for those hoping to achieve similar levels of Manhattan sophistication for a fly-tipping site in Barnsley or the derelict plot in Hartlepool, Paley Park cost $1m to create initially and $700k to renovate in 1999. And although a public space, it’s privately owned and financed by a private trust in perpetuity. It’s certainly not a space that could have emerged from the DCLG’s programme. While there’s nothing wrong with encouraging community groups to set their design aspirations high, no-one is going to create a Paley Park in four weeks with £10,000.
Small is beautiful – but…
I’m not against pocket parks. We can’t have too many parks – the more urban greening the better, and small spaces can achieve great things, especially in deprived areas. I’m all for local people having the power to plan the spaces that they want, that work for them. And I have nothing but admiration for anyone determined enough to improve their neighbourhood that they will undertake the DCLG’s hideous bureaucratic obstacle course to apply for a grant. But in the context of massive local authority cuts, which have fallen so heavily on parks and green spaces, not to mention the creeping corporatisation of the public realm, this looks like a tasteless PR gimmick.
The DCLG wants spaces where people can ‘escape the hustle and bustle of the urban streets’. Maybe we should look at more radical ways to reduce that ‘hustle and bustle’, for a start. Little patches of green serving an immediate neighbourhood are all well and good, but where’s the long-term thinking? A small space can quickly become a no-go area without good design, proper maintenance and funding for the future, none of which this programme seems to enable. Are pocket parks on the cheap really what’s needed?
A version of this article appeared in Pro Landscaper magazine January 2016
