C O N T E X T 1 3 3 : M A R C H 2 0 1 4 21 VALUING HERITAGE Historically significant sites under consideration for redevelopment include Crystal Palace Park, Sydenham. Katy Layton-Jones is an associate lecturer with the Open University and holds a university fellowship at the University of Leicester. She is the author of English Heritage’s forthcoming National Review of Research Priorities for Designed Landscapes and co-author of Places of Health and Amusement (2008). References 7 Heritage Lottery Fund and Big Lottery (2013) Rethinking Public Parks: exploring new business models for parks in the 21st century 8 Julian Dobson (2012) Grey Places Need Green Spaces: the case for investing in our nation’s natural assets, Groundwork, Birmingham only on the location of green spaces, but also their extent and type. Although the map does not attend exclusively to historic green spaces, the process of cataloguing green space provides a structure within which broader questions about typologies and value must be resolved, leading to fundamental discussions about methodologies and historical significance. As a result, the potential benefits for the field as a whole are considerable if they can be realised and guided by strong leadership. A reluctance to provide leadership for the parks sector, due to either a lack of funds or a lack of will, persists among heritage organisations. During the days of plenty, this was perhaps more defensible as CABE Space and GreenSpace appeared to be ready and able to assume the burden. GreenSpace attempted to take on additional functions when CABE Space was folded in 2011 due to government cuts, but without additional funding it struggled and went into administration in March 2013. The impact was immediate as the Love Parks project to train volunteers was cancelled before it could begin. It is likely that some of the roles performed by GreenSpace will now pass to other underfunded organisations, such as Keep Britain Tidy and the National Federation of Parks and Green Spaces. The long-term implications for prestige indicators such as Green Heritage Site Accreditation are difficult to predict. Today, despite chronic underfunding and a leadership vacuum, there are still some success stories. English Heritage has reviewed and upgraded 22 registered parks such asWavertree Botanic Garden, Liverpool, and Waterloo Park, Norwich.The Heritage Lottery Fund has commissioned aState of the UK’s Public Parks report and in November 2013 publishedRethinking Public Parks, and a Parks Alliance of executives from across the sector are marshalling themselves to champion parks.7 However, as Groundwork has noted, ‘the problem we face is not a lack of evidence: it is a lack of will to act effectively on the evidence before us’.8The question remains: who has the will and funds to act?
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