Bristol and Bath-based charity, Your Park Bristol & Bath, is celebrating its fifth anniversary with the launch of a 12-month campaign to reimagine the two cities’ parks and green spaces. The charity aims to tackle the barriers that prevent a significant portion of the local population from accessing and fully enjoying these valuable community assets.
According to Your Park Bristol & Bath, the majority of the 580 parks and green spaces in Bristol and Bath are not designed inclusively, which significantly impacts access for marginalized groups such as Disabled people and their carers, women and girls, minority ethnic groups, and those living in low-income areas.
The charity has identified three key factors that prevent people from confidently and comfortably using their local parks: physical accessibility, personal safety, and mental wellbeing.
The Reimagining Parks campaign, set to launch on May 9th, has an ambitious goal for every resident in Bristol and Bath to have a park within a ten-minute reach of their home, workplace, or school. This means ensuring that parks are physically accessible for Disabled people and their carers, designed with the safety and enjoyment of women and girls in mind, and used to support individuals with mental health issues.
To kick off the 12-month campaign, Your Park Bristol & Bath has launched a six-week, £30,000 fundraising challenge. This initial funding will help the charity begin their work in both cities, with the hope of attracting further funding to continue their efforts. During this fundraising period, all donations will be matched by Aviva.
Charlee Bennett, chief executive of Your Park Bristol & Bath, explains the importance of inclusive parks: “Parks are nature-rich, free to use, community assets that are good for everyone’s mental and physical health, but they have historically been designed through a very narrow lens. That means there are literally hundreds of thousands of people in our two cities – and millions beyond – who feel unable to make the most of their local green spaces.”
Bennett continues, “The statistics are horrifying for people who don’t have sufficient access to nature – for example, people growing up with little green space around them are 55% more likely to develop psychiatric disorders in later life, at greater risk of things like depression, anxiety, and obesity, to name just a few things.”
The Reimagining Parks campaign aims to create one exemplary park in both Bristol and Bath that is fully accessible to cater to all physical disabilities and differences. It also plans to develop a program of accessible and enjoyable activities, such as sensory walks, supported play sessions, family activities, and accessible gardening, in every neighborhood to support 2,000 people.
Additionally, the campaign hopes to have one exemplary park in each city redesigned by a woman, with safety in mind and the introduction of female-focused activities and facilities. The Roots to Wellbeing GP-referral program, which supports individuals with mental health issues, will also be expanded to two new areas of health deprivation in Bristol and Bath, helping 100 people each year.
The campaign also includes plans to adapt the Roots to Wellbeing program to provide regular out of hours activities, such as a summer program of community gardening, and activities for families. This will support 100 people in employment and 100 young people struggling with their mental or physical health.
The official launch of the Reimagining Parks campaign will take place on May 9th at Hartcliffe Millennium Green. This location was chosen as it is recognized as one of the areas in Bristol with the highest rates of health deprivation, green space deprivation, and Disabled residents. Your Park Bristol & Bath has been working with the community in Hartcliffe for the past two years and has just completed an accessibility assessment with local Disabled people and carers, laying the groundwork for actionable plans to improve accessibility.
While the maintenance of parks in both cities is the responsibility of the local authorities, they are supported by Your Park Bristol & Bath, which was created five years ago as only the second UK parks charity to come out of Nesta’s Rethinking Parks program. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, the charity has firmly established itself thanks to a dedicated core team and supporting volunteers. In 2023, it supported over 3,000 people through its activities.
For more information about the Reimagining Parks campaign or to donate to the £30k Crowdfunder, please visit https://yourpark.org.uk/reimagining-parks.