Parks and Green Spaces: Manchester, Gorton

Neil O'Brien Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O’Brien)]

I thank the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) for securing this Adjournment debate on a subject that matters a lot to all MPs in this House. He is a committed champion and advocate for green spaces in his constituency; we heard about the breadth of that advocacy in his very good speech. Who can blame him, when his constituency is among the greenest in the country? Not a lot of people would immediately guess that 89% of neighbourhoods in Manchester, Gorton have a high level of accessible green space within 15 minutes’ walk.

The hon. Member touched on some of the fantastic things that are happening in his constituency. He mentioned places such as Gore Brook valley, which offers locals access to a butterfly garden, historic pubs, a grade II listed church, a water sports centre, 200-year-old cottages and handsome Victorian terraces. There are also outstanding family parks such as Alexandra Park and Platts Field Park, which had the first ever “Friends of” group, as he mentioned.

Members of this House do not always share the same politics, but I think we all have the same enthusiasm for our parks. During the covid pandemic, as the hon. Member says, we appreciated them like never before; they were incredibly useful in keeping our sanity and our health during that difficult period. With the worst of covid now behind us, it is right that we reflect on what keeps parks going and on how we keep them looking brilliant and being useful.

The hon. Member rightly drew attention to the many roles that parks have, from sucking up water—that vivid image that he conjured up—to being a place where communities interact with one another. They also host important events for particular communities; it sounds as if similar things happen in his constituency as in mine on the edge of Leicester.

The hon. Member asked me to draw attention to and praise the work of the community groups that have put in 11,000-plus hours of community work in Greater Manchester. It is a pleasure to do so; some fantastic things are being done. I draw particular attention to the Litter Wombles—I do not know whether they operate in his constituency, but they are a wonderful social movement with huge numbers of people making our country tidier and nicer. I pay great tribute to all those groups.

The hon. Member touched on several subjects to which I will try to do justice, including planning. The Government are committed to retaining the beauty and the majesty of places, so our national planning policy requires that planning processes seek to deliver

“high quality, beautiful and sustainable buildings and places”.

That includes encouraging the creation of appropriate green and public space within new developments. The national planning policy framework makes explicit just how important beauty and design are to development across the country, and to

“creating better places in which to live and work”.

The hon. Member will have heard during the earlier debate on the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill about the BIDEN principles that the Secretary of State is championing, access to nature being a crucial element of that agenda.

The hon. Member mentioned funding. That did not, of course, start in 2019. Between 2017 and 2019 alone, we made £16.3 million available to support parks and green spaces, including those in urban environments. We provided the £9.7 million local authority parks improvement fund, the £5.1 million pocket parks and pocket parks plus programmes, and the £1.4 million investment to test new models and new ways of doing things through the future parks accelerator programme. As the hon. Member said, we are keeping that investment going well into the future with the £9 million fund for levelling up parks, which was announced in the spending review. The aim of the fund is to create 100 green spaces on unused, undeveloped or derelict land. Although we are still to announce further details, I can assure the hon. Member that it will be focused on increasing access to quality green space in deprived urban areas in the UK. Such access is important, for exactly the reasons that he gave.

The hon. Member touched on the role of the mayoral combined authority. I was pleased to be able to play a part in helping to set up the authority, which will enable communities to regenerate themselves and find more ambitious ways of creating green spaces in urban environments through, for instance, the multi-year investment funds that we have given it.

We will, of course, go further. The Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill contains a range of provisions for the creation of attractive green spaces, such as our planned reforms of compulsory purchase orders and our proposal to create liveable spaces by extending the temporary flexibilities on pavement dining. This is all about creating nicer places to be in, and about bigger area regeneration. The Bill also contains new legal powers, which we are backing up with funding streams such as the levelling-up fund, which can be used to create attractive new cultural and green spaces, and the highly flexible shared prosperity fund, which can be used to create new parks, among other civic amenities. There is also the programme that we have with Homes England to create 20 instances of transformative Kings Cross-style regeneration, using funding streams such as the £1.5 billion brownfield fund, and also the powers and expertise of Homes England to drive transformative urban regeneration. I am keen for that to include attractive new green spaces, because they are so important.

In the past, the link between public health and wellbeing and access to green spaces has not always been as well articulated as it could have been, but over time, evidence has built up. The hon. Member talked about some of it. Studies have found that contact with nature can reduce anxiety and stress, raise self-esteem, and improve psychological health. One 2009 study even concluded that people find it easier to resolve minor life problems when spending time in natural settings. It is difficult to think of any other resource that caters for so many different needs, from health to wellbeing to community integration.

I am delighted to have had the chance to talk about some of the things that the Government are doing, and about why and how we intend to continue to back our parks and make these wonderful and treasured community facilities even better in the future, and something of which we can all be proud.

Question put and agreed to.