Thousands of neighbourhoods across England have less than an A4 piece of paper worth of accessible green space per person due to “years of underinvestment”.
A new report by Friends of the Earth, shared exclusively with The i Paper, has mapped green spaces across the country and revealed stark inequalities in access to green areas, including parks, sports fields and woodlands.
Neighbourhoods in cities including London, Hull, Wolverhampton and Blackpool are among those with the least access to green space.
The Government has promised to improve matters with an Access to Nature Green Paper, but has not put a date on publication and environmental groups fear it has been deprioritised.
Friends of the Earth is calling on the Government to create new legal mechanisms to allow local communities to take over unused public land for food growing, “pocket parks” and wildlife areas.
‘People don’t have areas to bond’
Hull is one of the cities identified by Friends of the Earth where people have the least access to green space.
Across the city, there is an average of 16.4m2 of accessible green space per person, but this data masks disparities within the city, with 43 (26 per cent) of Hull’s 168 neighbourhoods having no public green spaces at all.
To improve access, Friends of the Earth and the Co-Operative Bank have been funding “Postcode Gardeners” in 17 areas across the country, including Hull.
John Pickles, the Postcode Gardener for Hull, said the problem isn’t only about the amount of green space, but also the quality of green spaces in deprived areas.
“There are small parks, but they don’t always feel like places that you might want to go to,” Pickles said.
Pickles has created allotments and flowerbeds in patches of unused land across the city, working with young offenders and patients referred by the NHS for issues including anxiety and social isolation.
“A lot of the time, people don’t have a hub to bond around,” Pickles said. “When I speak to local people about this, they say decades ago there would be rose bushes and interesting plants and things like that. But I think in a lot of cities the budget for maintaining green space has reduced over the decades.”
Three years ago Hull became the first city in Britain to introduce a “right to grow”, which means communities can apply to grow flowers and vegetables on any unused public land.
Friends of the Earth is calling on the Government to introduce this initiative nationally, as well as a new legal duty that would force councils to consider inequalities in access to green space when making planning decisions.
Government reforms delayed
The Government has promised to introduce an Access to Nature Green Paper within this Parliament, but ministers have refused to put a timetable on the reforms.
The green paper is expected to include strengthened public access rights, as well as plans to ensure everyone has access to a green or blue space within a 15-minute walk from their home.
However, environmental groups have warned that the lack of a timetable means the Government is likely to run out of time to introduce any meaningful change within this Parliament.
“Community greening can help transform neglected spaces into places of pride, connection and collective action. But we can’t expect communities to do this alone, or to compensate for years of underinvestment in our public spaces,” said Sienna Somers, senior nature campaigner at Friends of the Earth.
“While the Government must close the green space gap, they also need to put power in people’s hands and give communities the rights, resources and long-term support they need to shape their local area.”
A Defra spokesperson said: “After decades of neglect, this Government is getting on with restoring nature and pride in our local communities, backed by the biggest nature investment in history.
“We are increasing access to green spaces, creating three new national forests and delivering nine new National River Walks, a coast-to-coast route in the North of England and the 2,700-mile King Charles III England Coast Path.”