Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of the maintenance of parks in each of the last five years.

Over this spending period we have made available over £200 billion in funding for councils to spend on locally determined priorities such as park maintenance. Councils are however independent of central Government and are responsible for managing their budgets in line with local priorities.

The Parks Action Group, which was created following the Select Committee response to the Inquiry on the future of public parks, is reviewing a range of issues relating to parks and green spaces in England – including developing a priority work stream to accurately capture the current funding picture. The Government will report back to Parliament on this work in the Autumn.