The Gardens Trust has said it is devastated by the Government’s announcement that its role as a statutory consultee in the English planning system is being removed.
The Trust is particularly concerned that proposals affecting the setting of parks and gardens will be excluded from the intention to notify us of planning applications.
This puts the nation’s designed green space, created and enjoyed over hundreds of years, at immediate risk of harm through poorly-informed development, it claims.
Places include internationally famous and locally loved parks and gardens such as Hyde Park in London, Painshill in Surrey, Heligan in Cornwall, Chatsworth in Derbyshire, Wicksteed Park in Northamptonshire, Sheffield Botanical Gardens in Yorkshire, Birkenhead Park on the Wirral and Leazes Park in Newcastle.
Image: Belhus Pat, Essex - James Rudoni
The Gardens Trust’s Chair, John Watkins, said: “It’s devastating news that the Government has removed key protection for parks and gardens by ending the Gardens Trust’s role as statutory consultee. This devalues these special places and makes them vulnerable to poorly informed development.
“We do however welcome the Government’s recognition that we play an important part in the planning process and will strive to continue to offer advice to local planning authorities on ways to ensure that historic parks and gardens can survive to support communities today and in future but the Government’s decision means that this will be limited to development within the green spaces themselves rather than including setting.
“This removes protection for the views to and from them, and for the peace and tranquility in which people can enjoy them.”
The Trust says parks and gardens have key roles in addressing issues facing us all in the 21st century, such as:
- Growing the economy: historic parks and gardens support well-designed development with ready-made access to pre-existing greenspace. They also add hugely to the UK’s tourism economy, being one of the biggest drivers in this field, nationally and internationally.
- Helping to ameliorate the impacts of climate change. For example, parks and gardens with mature historic trees will play an increasingly important role as they provide shade and cooling islands in and around urban areas.
- Supporting nature recovery, particularly in our cities, where established older landscapes can provide established complex habitats.
- Playing an important role in social cohesion as public green space offers places for people to come together and build communities, as well as offering places for wellbeing, play and recreation for all. Public parks were created to support rapidly expanding cities in the 19th century, 1920s and post war period and will be critical to the success of 21ST century urban expansion and concentration.
- Ensuring that the NHS is fit for the future, because parks and gardens help reduce demand on the NHS by offering free-to-access places to exercise and enjoy fresh air, critical for health and wellbeing.
- Nurturing opportunity for all, because not only does an active parks and gardens sector support inclusive access to leisure but it also offers a range of accessible career pathways.
They are also important heritage assets, helping us to understand and tell the story of our society, bringing communities together with a shared narrative, and showcasing the best of creative design from generations before us so that we can together learn from them for the future.
Since 1995 the Gardens Trust has been a statutory consultee in the English planning system, providing the primary mechanism for protecting the nation’s historic parks and gardens. As a statutory consultee, local planning authorities and the Planning Inspectorate must consult the Gardens Trust in relation to all planning applications that may affect historic designed landscapes on the national Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England.
The Gardens Trust is the statutory consultee for sites on the Register at all Grades – Grade I, II* and II. (Historic England is additionally a consultee for Grade I and II*, but the Gardens Trust is the only consultee to also cover Grade II sites, which make up c65% of Registered sites.)
The Gardens Trust’s work supporting the planning system is delivered by a small team of part-time conservation officers, supported by a committee of expert national volunteers and 35 County Gardens Trusts who bring around 800 highly-active volunteers. The Gardens Trust receives a Government grant of approximately £45,000 to support its planning system work. The cost of all local planning authorities having to deliver this service themselves is estimated at £3,692,846 per annum.
The threat to historic parks and gardens by removing the Gardens Trust’s statutory consultee role is removed is huge.
- Despite the advances of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and Planning Practice Guidance (PPG), Registered Parks and Gardens do not benefit from a specific consent regime such as listed building consent, scheduled monument consent or conservation area consent.
- The statutory consultee role has acknowledged the significance of Registered Parks and Gardens in their own right as well as providing the context and setting of archaeology and buildings.
- The Levelling Up and Regeneration Act, 2023 recognises this, and categorises a Registered Park and Garden as a “relevant asset” (s.58B). This would mean a Local Planning Authority or the Secretary of State would need to have “special regard to the desirability of preserving or enhancing the asset or its setting” when determining any development affecting such an asset or its setting. But this has yet to be enacted.
- Without proper consideration of Registered Parks and Gardens in the planning system through the statutory consultee role, the checks and balances of the planning system will be eroded and in particular the many much-loved Grade II sites will experience greater vulnerability.
