Written evidence submitted by Harrow Recreation Ground Steering Group (HRGSG) [PKS 105]
Recommendation
We recommend that local authorities, which are run by locally elected councils, should have a statutory duty to maintain their parks and open spaces and that funding should be provided by the tax payer. Park User Groups have an important role but responsibility must remain with the local authority.
Context
HRGSG was formed to plan improvements to Harrow Recreation Ground in 2004 and adopted a formal constitution on 18th May 2016. The Founder Member Organisations are: Harrow Recreation Ground Users Association; Harrow St Mary’s Youth Football Club; Three Bridges Cricket Club; Harrow Bowls Club; Harrow Parkrun; Harrow Ignite Trust; Roxborough Road Residents’ Association.
We support and are supported by Harrow Council Enterprise and Environment and the local police.
Responses to the Public Parks Inquiry Questions
Harrow Recreation Ground is the nearest park to Harrow Town Centre. It has football and cricket pitches, a bowls green, tennis courts and a basketball court, open spaces, a sensory garden, a children’s playground, a green gym and a fitness trail. It is used regularly for organised youth football, cricket, bowls, running, guided health walks and informally or occasionally for tennis, basketball, cycling training, dog walking, exercise and recreation. Ignite organises activities for teenagers at risk over the summer.
Harrow has a diverse community and we have noticed an increasing trend for families from different ethnic and cultural groups to set up camp and spend an afternoon in Harrow Rec., older adults on folding chairs, young adults sitting on rugs and children playing nearby.
Harrow Recreation Ground Users Association organises free community events such as nature walks, dog show, concerts, kite day, and fun day. These are mainly funded by subscriptions and donations, Dr Bike is paid for by Harrow Council.
Increasingly people are being crammed into small flats and many local residents have no other access to green open spaces. It is well known that the physical and mental health of everyone is improved by being outdoors in a green environment, taking appropriate exercise, having fun and mixing with other park users.
The children’s playground provides active entertainment and allows children and their parents or carers to get to know each other.
The Green Gym and Fitness Trail are very well used by people of all ages and backgrounds, male and female, and, of course, the use of the excellent equipment is free.
The Guided Park Walks are particularly useful in maintaining mobility of older residents.
Participating in activities also brings together people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds and reduces isolation.
Dog walkers form a community within our community even if some of them only know each other by the name of the dog!
Organised youth activity, not only promotes the health and well-being of our young people but also helps them to grow into responsible citizens.
We could give more examples and more details.
Harrow Council has cut the budgets for the environment every year since 2010 in response to the dwindling grant from central government. We still have some excellent staff dedicated to the maintenance and improvement of our parks but they no longer have the resources and are under increasing strain. If they were to leave it could be a disaster for Harrow.
Harrow Recreation Ground is one of the five parks in Harrow with Green Flag status. We know we get a disproportionate share of the resources but we are still underfunded and maintenance is not as frequent or thorough as we would wish, Our entrances, paths and the sensory garden get overgrown with shrubs and weeds, litter and rubbish dumped gets scattered by foxes and the wind because bin emptying and litter picking have been reduced, litter blown into the shrubs is not retrieved (as it was when we had our own park keeper), our public toilet is almost permanently out of order. But other parks are worse off and as a Member Group of Harrow Parks Forum we argue that more resources are needed for all Harrow’s parks.
The administrative responsibility for parks should remain with local authorities especially in view of the reduction in resources for both statutory and non-statutory services. The local authority has experience and expertise in managing the environment. Voluntary organisations cannot guarantee continuity of service and profit makers will do less with given resources.
Furthermore, we do not agree that it is necessary for resources to decline, this is a deliberate policy from central government that could be reversed and we believe that maintenance of parks and open spaces should be made a statutory duty of local authorities.
Parks and open spaces need greater protection in planning law. Currently Harrow is selling off land to developers and is planning to build, for example, on council owned car parks. Harrow School has applied to build on Metropolitan Open Land. If underfunding continues cemeteries and parks will be next to come under threat.
Local Authority funding should be increased either through the grant from central government or through the Council Tax (for example by having extra higher bands).
Responsibility for managing Harrow’s parks must remain with Harrow Council but voluntary groups can work with the local authority, particularly in organising fun activities and events in parks and in simple maintenance such as litter-picking and weeding.
Harrow Parks Forum is an umbrella forum through which different park user groups can share knowledge, support new groups and enjoy events at each other’s parks.
Harrow Recreation Ground has had some capital funding from new housing developments nearby, but what we need is more resources for maintenance. We do not consider that Harrow Recreation Ground is suitable for commercial events or weddings.
The sports clubs contribute to the maintenance of the Rec. both financially and through physical work. The service they provide to the community would be threatened if the Council tried to charge them more.
Privatisation and outsourcing have been used to enable cost-cutting by providing less good working and pension conditions and by reducing the service to the public. It is better to rely on our Council Officers who share our aims, respond to our requests, and discuss with us how best to use their inadequate resources. Furthermore the Council is far more directly accountable than outsourced companies.
It is unclear what mutualisation would involve or how it could be better than direct local authority management. Would the working conditions and pension of employees be better? How would the service users (potentially all those who live, work or pass through the local authority area) be represented?
Paul Gosling (Co-operative News, 26 August 2014) warns (in the context of the National Health Service) that Converting an NHS body into a mutual does not resolve problems of service under-funding, and he argues against some of the loose definitions they [The Cabinet Office]have used, which risk turning the word ‘mutual’ into a cover for privatisation.
Post Script
Since we drafted our submission, the National Federation of Parks and Green Spaces have made a considered submission to the Inquiry [Parks Crisis: NFPGS Submission to Government Inquiry (September 2016)] which Harrow Recreation Ground Steering Group fully endorses.
September 2016