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From: Kate Ashbrook <hq@oss.org.uk><br>
Subject: News release: Vital piece missing from levelling-up jigsaw, says
Open Spaces Society<br>
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2022 14:57:27 +0000<br>
<br><br>
<div align="center"><b>OPEN SPACES SOCIETY<br>
</b></div>
<br>
<div align="center"><b>NEWS RELEASE<br>
</b></div>
<br>
<br><br>
<div align="center"><b>VITAL PIECE MISSING FROM LEVELLING-UP JIGSAW, SAYS
OPEN SPACES SOCIETY<br>
</b></div>
<br>
The Open Spaces Society<sup>(1)</sup>, Britain’s national pressure-group
for green spaces, has criticised today’s announcement on levelling up as
a missed chance to rectify the gross inequality of access to local
spaces.<br><br>
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael
Gove, has unveiled his
‘<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-unveils-levelling-up-plan-that-will-transform-uk">
levelling-up</a> plan’ without a mention of the importance of local green
spaces. Yet these, which have always been important, proved to be
vital during the pandemic, for the public’s mental and physical health,
and they have a crucial role in addressing the impact of the climate
crisis.<br><br>
The paper contains 12 national, levelling-up missions (policy objectives)
to be given legal status, with the aim of shifting government focus and
resources to forgotten communities. All this is to be achieved by
2030. One aim is to improve wellbeing in every area of the
UK. Another is to increase people’s pride in place, closing the gap
between the top- and bottom-performing town centres and local
cultures. It is unclear how these dramatic changes will be
achieved.<br><br>
The society has long been concerned about the government’s lack of
urgency in addressing inequality of green space. In 2021, when the
government made amendments to the National Planning Policy Framework
(NPPF), the society highlighted the bungled opportunity to improve and
strengthen the process in the NPPF to designate land as a local green
space (LGS). The society considers it vital that government
provides sufficient funding, and overhauls neighbourhood planning, to
ensure that LGS designation is made easier, with encouragement for local
people to get involved.<br><br>
The society also runs its
<a href="https://www.oss.org.uk/grant-a-green-campaign/">Grant a
Green</a> campaign, in which it urges local councils voluntarily to
register<sup>(2)</sup> their green spaces as town or village greens, thus
protecting them from development and giving local people rights of
recreation there.<br><br>
Says Nicola Hodgson, case officer for the Open Spaces Society: ‘The
government cannot seriously run a levelling-up programme while neglecting
the glaring inequality of access to local green space. It must
invest in those areas where people cannot have ready and safe access to a
green space on their doorstep, and ensure that such spaces are
provided.<br><br>
‘People must also be able to designate local spaces as LGS to secure
their protection, so that the multiple benefits they provide endure for
future generations. The government has omitted a vital piece of the
levelling up jigsaw from its proposals.’<br><br>
<div align="right"><b>ENDS<br>
</b></div>
<br>
<b>Attached photo: Queen’s Crescent Garden, designated as local green
space in the Exeter St James neighbourhood plan, Devon. Photo: Aylwyn
Bowen.<br>
</b><br>
<b>Notes for editors<br>
</b><br>
<br><br>
1 The Open Spaces
Society was founded in 1865 and is Britain’s oldest national conservation
body. It campaigns to protect common land, village greens, open
spaces and public paths, and people’s right to enjoy them. The
society was instrumental in saving Hampstead Heath, Wimbledon Common,
Epping Forest and many other London open spaces in the nineteenth
century.<br><br>
<br><br>
2 Any landowner can
dedicate land as a town or village green, under section 15(8) of the
Commons Act 2006. Once the land is dedicated, local people have
rights of informal recreation there, and the land is protected from
encroachment and development for ever more under section 12 of the
Inclosure Act 1857 and section 29 of the Commons Act 1876.<br><br>
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