Parks (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)

Gill Furniss Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

Even amidst the most built-up cities, we are blessed with parks and pockets of green space. Those spaces improve air quality, lower temperatures near congested cities and even harbour wildlife, but they are also the lifeblood of our communities. As we face an obesity crisis and concerns over public health, parks offer free and accessible opportunities for exercise and enjoyment. At a time when families are living in ever more cramped conditions and unsuitable housing, parks provide a much-needed environment in which children without access to other opportunities can enjoy being children. In an era of extreme loneliness and isolation, they are bringing people of all ages together, and in an age of unprecedented privatisation and commercialisation of public space, they remain free for everyone to use and benefit from.

According to the indices of multiple deprivation, my constituency is one of the most deprived in the country. Government figures suggest that we might expect to see far fewer parks and open spaces in such areas than in wealthier areas. However, Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough, despite its legacy as a highly urban formerly industrial area, is an exception to this, having substantial areas of parks and open space across the constituency.

Sheffield can lay claim to being the greenest city in Europe, with a third of our city boundary lying within the Peak district and a history of prestigious prizes won, including the 2005 Entente Florale gold medal. We are blessed with hundreds of parks and open spaces, and residents have access to a huge range of facilities, from small play parks to ancient woodlands. The National Trust funded research in 2016 on Sheffield’s parks, which highlighted the huge value and benefit they hold for local people and the financial value that they represent to health and other public services.

I did not call this debate to bemoan a lack of parks for my constituents, nor are parks facing any kind of crisis of usership, with the city council reporting significantly increased numbers of park visitors in recent years. Last year, the Communities and Local Government Committee produced an excellent report on public parks. I agree with the thrust of its recommendations, as indeed do the Government, and hope that these can help improve parks nationwide. However, I wish to bring attention to the challenges of maintaining parks after years of austerity and the problems that having large parks alongside significant local deprivation can have.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way; I sought her permission to intervene beforehand. My constituency of Strangford is an area of outstanding natural beauty, which is wonderful. Does she agree that, whatever the increasing need for housing and facilities, we must ensure that parks are protected and enhanced, for they surely enhance quality of life and benefit all in our communities?

[Gill Furniss]

I completely agree and will say more about that as I continue.

The additional issues I have mentioned are often worsened by the funding shortfall. Since 2010, Sheffield City Council has suffered a staggering £430 million a year in cuts. The council looks after the vast majority of parks and open space in my constituency, but its maintenance of them is not a statutory duty. This contrasts with the situation for libraries; like parks, they are vital for young people’s development and enjoyment, but councils have a statutory duty to provide them. As councils have to make their Government-imposed cuts, parks and open spaces are of course facing drastically reduced spending.

In 2010-11, £40 million of Sheffield council’s £1 billion services budget was allocated for parks, sports and open-space facilities. This year around £30 million is budgeted. That is a real-terms cut of over 40%. That reduction is even more difficult to sustain as the council has not closed a single park in this time; maintenance has simply become incredibly stretched.

Sheffield’s parks funding cut is severe, but Sheffield has kept parks spending at a higher level than some comparable authorities. In recent months, there has been significant coverage of councils taking decisions to reduce parks spending even more drastically. It is not for me to criticise authorities who have utterly unenviable spending choices after years of cuts; however, I am glad that Sheffield has chosen to keep parks as a spending priority even under such difficult conditions. Figures from the National Trust’s research suggested that in Sheffield the savings from health and wellbeing benefits far outweighed the money spent. This is yet another example where cuts that councils have had no choice but to make have ended up costing far more down the line.

Turning to the impact of these cuts, like all Members, I get feedback from casework and constituency visits on the state of our parks, but this is inevitably a partial picture. To inform tonight’s debate, I launched an online survey for local park users. This is not scientific standard research, but I received 260 responses from local people and it has given a fascinating view of people’s thoughts and concerns.

It is concerning that nearly 40% of people feel park maintenance has declined over the past 10 years, but this is perhaps inevitable with the cuts that have been faced. More importantly, a quarter of respondents felt that the state of their parks was not acceptable. The council acknowledges that less than half the green space in my constituency meets the Sheffield standard—that it has been assessed as safe, clean and welcoming. This represents a divide in some parts of the city, which I will address shortly. Parks assessed as achieving the Sheffield standard represent up to 80% of the total number.

There still are basic maintenance budgets to cover upkeep, but the standards have inevitably been reduced for grass cutting and horticultural work. Alternative plans such as keeping some areas with longer grass with wildflowers are prominent in parks across my constituency. Alongside the general reduction in budget and the resulting challenge to general maintenance, council parks officers identify major problems in maintaining high-quality parks. One is the lack of money to replace equipment and facilities in parks and to regenerate more severely run down parks, and I will address this point later. No doubt parks nationwide suffer from this.

A second major issue is that of antisocial behaviour. Countless studies in recent years have shown that more deprived areas bear the brunt of antisocial behaviour, and police figures from my constituency unfortunately confirm this. We also know that local authorities such as Sheffield, which have higher overall levels of deprivation, have suffered disproportionate cuts. Antisocial behaviour gives councils a significant problem when looking after parks today. Many of our parks suffer frequent damage of all kinds, with issues ranging from motorbikers riding over the grass to bin fires. Many of the parks have no working swings for local children, with replacement swings delayed or sometimes shelved until the antisocial behaviour decreases.

These incidents serve to make our parks less safe, and, put simply, the budget of the Sheffield City Council parks department cannot cover the frequent repair and maintenance associated with higher levels of misuse. This is deeply unfair on the vast majority of people who use their local parks responsibly and are deeply proud of them. To give an example, residents recently expressed concern about the state of Longley park, a large local park that many residents feel is not being kept in the state that they expect or have been promised. It is very close to where I grew up, so it holds a special place in my heart. At one time during my childhood, it boasted an outdoor swimming pool, which is a rare thing these days. It was partly the concerns expressed to me and to the local paper that crystallised my thinking about the need for this Adjournment debate.

Longley park is a prime example of antisocial behaviour affecting people’s enjoyment of their parks. It is a large park but it lies in a wider area of deprivation. It also has a difficult geography, in that large parts of it are not overlooked, making antisocial behaviour more prevalent. In my survey, one constituent who lives close to the park said:

“I don’t feel comfortable spending much time in it. Most times it has kids on motorbikes going round the paths which means you have to walk with dogs and kids on grass that hasn’t been cut and is full of dog waste.”

As people see their local park looking less well kept, less care is generally taken to respect the space. This situation is not a major problem for every park, but where it is, it really is a vicious circle.

The answer is not simple. The problem is a consequence of the general slashing of local government and community policing budgets. In common with all Labour Members, I have long been concerned and vocal about cuts across the board, but parks embody the problem of the effects of cuts multiplying. One concern expressed locally and in my survey was that parks in other parts of the city received more maintenance compared with local parks in my constituency. Although that is not the case, the damage caused to many of our local parks can make it appear to be the reality.

The additional maintenance needed for parks in deprived areas is not the only concern. There are myriad other issues as well. It is more difficult to sustain commercial activity such as events, funfairs or cafés in poorer areas, so there is less additional income to invest, compared with parks in wealthier areas. Facilities such as cafés can also mean that staff are regularly in a park to deter and report antisocial behaviour and other problems. I am positive about the plans that the council is making to bring more facilities and income to the largest parks in my constituency, but the income in parks in the wealthier parks of Sheffield has meant that, with some exceptions, they will always receive more in additional income to assist their maintenance.

As I mentioned earlier, councils across the country are struggling to fund upgrades and replacements for park facilities that are reaching end of life, particularly play equipment, which is notoriously expensive. If not replaced, the equipment becomes dangerous, more easily broken and less attractive to use. Where parks have faced high levels of misuse, replacements are not only needed sooner, but parks officers rightly look to replace damaged equipment and structures with more resilient items. With the decimation of council capital budgets and concerns about the sustainability of lottery funding—an incredibly important source of funding for park upgrades —parks face a maintenance crisis. The ending last year of “Parks for People”, the largest lottery funding pot for parks, leaves the future uncertain at best.

We have brilliant friends’ groups in our parks and open spaces that devote time and energy to maintaining and improving the places they, and we, value so much, and I place on the record my thanks to the many groups in my patch. I am pleased to have been as supportive as possible to as many of these groups at their events. In some cases, such as at the wonderful Wardsend cemetery, volunteers have taken the lead role in restoring a precious historic green space, but, again, volunteers disproportionately benefit parks in more affluent areas. It is a simple fact that in many parts of my constituency there are fewer people who can spare the time to volunteer, which makes it harder to gather people together to sustain the friends’ groups that can make long-term improvements to a park.

[Jim Shannon]

Does the hon. Lady accept that councils also have a responsibility for health and safety? Roundabouts, swings and so on must be maintained, but councils must also deal with dog owners and dog waste. Both issues need to be addressed to make a park accessible and safe for everyone.

[Gill Furniss]

I absolutely agree. That is the thrust of my speech tonight, and I have already detailed the effects of cuts to budgets for policing and public services.

It would be easy to ask the Minister to consider making parks statutory services, so that councils could be held to account more easily for their maintenance. However, my local parks would not be helped one bit by that without the Government backing up the change with serious funding for local authorities to meet this requirement. Labour and the Conservatives have different views about local authority funding, and I do not think that we will resolve this difference tonight. As much as local authorities can innovate in developing and maintaining parks, it appears to be an unfortunate truth that there will always be higher costs. I ask the Minister specifically to ensure that councils have enough capital funds to create parks that are resilient to the challenges they can face. I also ask him to work with the Minister for Sport to ensure that lottery funds specifically support parks facing difficulties with misuse and the lack of commercial income that I have outlined. As welcome as the “Parks for People” programme was, its focus on heritage meant that parks in the most challenging areas sometimes lost out in favour of parks in traditionally leafier suburbs.

I thank Members and the Minister for attending tonight. I also thank local people, interested organisations and local parks officers who all offered a wealth of information, so much of which I could not touch on tonight. I hope that I can make a small contribution to ensuring that we have resilient parks and green spaces in every part of my constituency and in every city. Maintaining and improving parks for every citizen is an absolute necessity if we want to create a more equal, healthy and happy society.