Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many and what proportion of the population have access to (a) green space and (b) water within 15 minutes walk from home.

The data we currently use on the number and proportion of people with access to greenspace is taken from Natural England’s Green Infrastructure (GI) Framework analysis. Natural England’s G3 Indicator report shows that as of October 2021, the proportions of the total population in England living within Accessible Greenspace Standards ‘criteria’ (straight line distances from the boundary of the greenspaces) are:

• 1 in 3 people live within 200 metres of a doorstep greenspace of at least 0.5 hectares

• 1 in 4 people live within 300 metres of a local natural greenspace of at least 2 hectares

• 1 in 2 people live within 1 km of a neighbourhood natural greenspace of at least 10 hectares.

We are currently working to establish a robust baseline of walkability to green and blue space, including working with NE and with the Rivers Trust to create data on blue space access points. In August we will publish an official statistic in development on walkability within England to the nearest green space. This will use network analysis to calculate travel time/distance rather than straight-line distances, and enhanced use of data on the rights-of-way network. For full details see https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/announcements/access-to-green-space-in-england.