Every weekend, a parkrun takes place in my local park, as it does in parks all over the country. Although not a participant myself, I often see the runners gathered at the finishing line, young and old, cheering one another on. At a time when the two great global health epidemics are predicted to be obesity and mental health, it seems ridiculous that anybody should wish to penalise something that’s so successful and important.
But that is precisely what is happening near Bristol, where Stoke Gifford parish council has voted to start charging organisers of the weekly parkrun for use of their local park. The council argues that runners are causing damage to Little Stokes park that must be paid for. Parkrun, which aims to provide an opportunity for regular, enjoyable exercise for thousands, is challenging the decision.
The only real surprise here is that it has taken so long for a council to try to cash in on its success. The question for them is simple: how do we pay for our parks? The problem with simple questions is that they can lead to simple-minded solutions.
This is a dangerous time for parks. They are “non-statutory services” – meaning no local council is required by law to fund them. So, as local authority parks budgets are slashed, alternative sources of investment are being investigated. Sometimes this means hiring out parks for commercial festivals, sometimes it involves subletting part of the park to a private enterprise. Neither is ideal, chipping away at the elevated founding principle of parks as public spaces that benefit everybody.
But the underlying issue is that councils are desperate to ensure parks do not undergo the sort of ugly decline many faced in the 1980s following similar cuts. Unlike in the 1980s, when parks often became a local liability, everybody now seems to agree that parks are a good thing – environmentally, economically, socially and for health – and for them to remain a good thing, services need to be maintained if not improved. What nobody can decide is who should foot the bill. Local authorities are panicking.
Some, such as Bexley, have decided to sell some of their open spaces. This is probably the worst possible solution. Others, such as Stoke Gifford, have decided to charge people for using their land, which is almost as bad. Parkrun is a hugely popular event that gets people into parks, taking part in exercise – precisely the sort of thing any sensible council should be encouraging.
Not only is this good for the community – if people use parks, they do not become no-go areas – it is also good for public health, which saves everybody money in the long term. If local authorities start charging groups who get organised about running what’s to stop them from charging a group of kids from playing a pre-planned game of football down the park after school? The council may argue this is no different to charging for boating lakes or tennis courts, but these are facilities that require additional upkeep and take space away from the rest of the park. A run around the perimeter or a kickabout on the grass is precisely what the park was created for in the first place.
We are likely to see many more such desperate decisions in the next few years as funding shortfalls start to bite. Liverpool and Newcastle city councils have said that by 2018 they will not be able to pay for any non-statutory services and are investigating solutions such as selling land and introducing specific taxes for parks. The Heritage Lottery Fund, which has invested millions in parks infrastructure, produced a report in 2014, Park Life Revisited, which revealed that 45% of local authorities were considering selling or transferring ownership of parks, while nearly 90% had made cuts since 2010. It warned: “Unless future funding is generated in new ways, parks are at serious risk of rapid decline and even being sold off and lost to the public together.”
In Nottingham, the council has set itself a target of making its 136 parks entirely self-funded by 2020. They are working in partnership with the Parks Alliance, which was created in 2013 specifically to address the funding crisis. Mark Camley, chairman of the Parks Alliance, says of the parkrun debate that: “It is almost inevitable that in the current climate, where park services are facing increasing cuts to their budgets, they will look for opportunities to raise income to balance their books. Without knowing the specifics of this case, we need to strike the right balance between free access for current users and maintaining green spaces for future generations.”
Whatever the problem, whatever the balance, charging joggers is not the answer.
