18 C O N T E X T 1 3 3 : M A R C H 2 0 1 4 VALUING HERITAGE KATY LAYTON-JONES The parks conundrum Ninety per cent of the population uses and values them, but Britain’s public parks face chronic underfunding and a leadership vacuum. Who has the will and funds to act? At last, in the first decade of the 21st century, Britain’s public parks were finally on the heritage agenda.A lengthy decline was in remission as the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Urban Parks Programme and its successor, Parks for People, provided essential investment for some of the country’s historically significant green spaces. At the same time, CABE Space undertook important research into the funding and management of urban parks. Although most reports attempted to strike a positive tone, many were also forthright in their demands for a transformation of the financing and management of historic green spaces. Following the relative optimism of 1997–2007, the economic crisis marked a change in mood and expectation within heritage and greenspace organisations. CABE Space was terminated in 2011, leaving a sector full of promise but devoid of leadership. Without statutory protection, parks are again for the chop, both financially and, in some cases, literally. Across the country, numerous historic parks are currently being abandoned to the consequences of fleeting commercial schemes and politicised initiatives.The sector has become a tangle of suspicion, confused and misused terminology, ideological conflict and destructive competition. The vulnerability of parks dates back to their origins. The report of the 1833 Select Committee of Public Walks observed that one park ‘is now little frequented in consequence of its being surrounded by the town, and the trees being spoiled by the smoke of the town’.1 Despite a golden age in the late 19th century, by the second half of the 20th century there was again an undisputed decline in park quality as a result of war damage, changes to management and maintenance, loss of park police, and chronic underfunding.2 The impact of falling levels of investment and compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) have attracted much attention from conservation and landscape professionals alike. In the 1990s the Victorian Society altered its approach from what had been a relatively defensive strategy, to one of attack, funding influential research into the physical condition of some of the nation’s most historically-significant urban parks. One of the most well-known products of this shift is Conway and Lambert’s 1993 report Public Prospects: historic urban parks under threat. In their report, the authors invoked a series of examples of parks at risk to demonstrate the extent of the challenge as it existed in 1993. Conway and Lambert identified vandalism, redevelopment, local government reorganisation, CCT, and poor quality repairs as some of the greatest threats to urban parks.Twenty years later the challenges of obtaining and maintaining funding, of combating vandalism and of resisting the threat of redevelop remain.Although a number of the case studies cited inPublic Prospects have now been restored, such as the Sefton Park PalmHouse and Alexandra Park, Oldham, other sites and buildings have taken their place as assets at risk. The predicament of historic parks would perhaps be less astounding if they were low on the public’s list of priorities. However, all evidence indicates that the opposite is true.The denigration of historic green space is taking place against a backdrop of unprecedented community resistance. With almost 90 per cent of the population using and valuing parks, their influence on our quality of life is incontrovertible.3 Why then has the value we place on historic green space been so underestimated? Indeed, the myth that historical parks Previously-neglected structures can provide the cornerstone of a park’s financial sustainability. (Photo: English Heritage) The recent restoration project at Stanley Park in Liverpool demonstrates what can be done with even seriously damaged structures. References 1 House of Commons (1833) Report from the Select Committee on PublicWalks with the minutes of evidence taken before them, 1833. British Parliamentary Papers,Vol 15 2 Susan Lasdun (1991) The English Park: royal, private and public, Andre Deutsch, London 3 CABE Space (2010) Urban Green Nation: building the evidence base
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