FAO: Julie Colclough, council officer with responsibility for the environment Stoke-on-Trent City Council
The experience of the past year has taught us the value of our home environment and its impact on our physical and mental wellbeing. One key learning is that access to green space within close walking distance of home is hugely beneficial, particularly for individuals and households who do not have access to a private garden.
This is a point illustrated by research carried out by academics from Cardiff University and Cardiff Metropolitan University and published in the journal Landscape and Urban Planning in April of this year. The findings in their article highlight the utility of public and private green spaces to promoting wellbeing.
Therefore, we call on Stoke-on-Trent City Council to include in the Local Plan that will shape development over the next two decades a commitment to protect the city’s green spaces from development. This would include both those spaces formally recognised as parks by the council and more informal green spaces that have a demonstrable value to the community in which they are located.
The template for drawing up this protection would be a Deed of Dedication between the City Council as the landowner and the charity Fields in Trust protecting the green spaces included from development in perpetuity. Any such agreement would provide robust protection whilst allowing the management of the sites, which would remain under the authority of the council, to be responsive to changes in local circumstances. Details of the process can be read in full on the Fields in Trust website.
The Local Plan is, rightly, aimed at improving the economic position of the city of Stoke-on-Trent and creating a similar improvement in the physical and mental wellbeing of its residents is vital to that process.
This will not be possible if the plan does not place an appropriate value on protecting existing green spaces and, wherever possible, requiring developments to create new ones. Evidence for this can be seen in research conducted for Fields in Trust which found that the Wellbeing Value associated with using parks and green spaces amounts to £34.2 billion for the entire UK population and saves the NHS £111 million in reduced GP visits alone. A summary of the research findings can be downloaded here.
Details of how Fields in Trust have worked with Liverpool City Council to protect the city’s parks and green spaces can be found at here.
These proposals have been put forward as part of the consultation on the proposed Local Plan because protecting green spaces is integral to developing communities and not just building housing. We request that this letter be passed on in addition to the named council officer with responsibility for the environment and that she replies to its content as part of a constructive dialogue on how Stoke-on-Trent can meet the environmental challenges of the years to come.
Yours Sincerely,
Adam Colclough
North Staffs Green Party