Newcastle City Council (NCC) is set to test a new model for looking after its parks, thanks to Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) support.
A groundbreaking scheme, funded by the National Lottery, will help NCC to develop and test a new funding, management and maintenance model for 33 of the city’s parks and allotments - over 400 hectares of land.
Such a proposal could see Newcastle’s parks and green spaces remain the property of the city council but transfer day-to-day responsibility for funding, managing and maintaining them to a new charitable trust whose sole purpose is to manage the parks.
The scheme has been designed to help tackle the financial challenges facing the local authority, where park budgets have been dramatically reduced. Parks are not a statutory service for local authorities; however many, like NCC, recognise their vital importance to the health and wellbeing of local communities.
The money has been announced as the Communities and Local Government (CLG) Select Committee Parks Inquiry calls for strategic local parks plans and innovation in management models and funding sources. Public engagement starts 13 February, running until 21 April. Find out more on the Let's Talk Newcastle website.
NCC is launching a consultation on the detail of the plans but if implemented, the charitable trust would independently manage approximately 33 parks across the city and possibly over 50 hectares of allotment land. It would explore new ways of best using the current facilities, space and buildings to bring in revenue for the successful running of the parks, without undermining free access to parks. NCC will also explore whether an endowment could be put in place to support the Trust.
The £237,500 for testing this approach has been awarded by HLF, which in partnership with the Big Lottery Fund has invested more than £12million to restore and upgrade Newcastle’s historic parks. This further funding will help protect that past investment and further test and develop proposals which emerged from an earlier HLF-supported Rethinking Parks project delivered by the National Trust in partnership with Sheffield City Council.
In its recent report, State of UK Public Parks 2016, HLF outlined the financial challenges facing parks in light of local authority budget reductions and called on local and national government, communities and businesses to explore innovative ways to fund and maintain public parks. This project will enable the in-depth testing of one such approach.
NCC is working with the National Trust to deliver this project, drawing on its considerable expertise and experience of looking after special places for public benefit. HLF will require the Council to share its findings so that other local authorities learn from this pioneering work.
Ros Kerslake, Chief Executive of HLF, said: “Having invested more than £850m of National Lottery players’ money in ensuring over 850 of the UK’s historic parks are in good shape, we welcome the recommendations of this report which puts their future front and centre of strategic local priorities.
“Our State of UK Public Parks 2016 report revealed the immense financial pressures facing our public parks. But it also revealed just how important these spaces are to the health and well-being of local communities and they need to be protected. This National Lottery investment is giving Newcastle City Council the tools to explore a creative approach to securing its parks for everyone.”
Cllr Kim McGuinness, cabinet member for culture and communities at NCC, said: “The city council is delighted that HLF has made this funding award, which will help us to move forward with our plan to transform the way our parks are run. It’s also really good timing that this announcement is made as we are about embark on our wide-ranging consultation with residents and park users in Newcastle about the future of parks.
“This parks engagement programme is a path finding project that will enable the City Council to work closely with residents, community groups and businesses to help shape the future of Newcastle’s parks. The State of UK Public Parks report rightly highlights the great difficulties we face in sustaining and prioritising our parks and green spaces in this climate of local authority budget cuts. We’re committed in Newcastle to moving with the times and modernising. This is a pioneering opportunity for the city as we seek to create a charitable trust model to run and protect our parks and ensure they remain in public ownership at a time when austerity has made our current operating model unsustainable.”
The National Trust has invested a similar amount of funding into the programme as they work closely on an advisory level with the City Council.
Harry Bowell, National Trust Director for the North said: “This is a really exciting opportunity for Newcastle to safeguard its parks and greenspaces, and the many benefits they provide, forever, and we are delighted to be supporting the city and its communities on this trailblazing project.”
“We are lending our experience and skills to help ensure the proposals for the new independent charity are financially sustainable and also protect the wider benefits parks currently deliver to local communities.
“This is an important moment for local people and business to get involved in shaping the future of the city’s parks. We would encourage people to feed into the council consultation.”
The money awarded by HLF will be used to: construct a business case and legal structure for the Trust to operate the Council’s parks and allotments; and if implemented, put the governance in place and deliver training to the new trustees, staff and volunteers.
