As part of our work to champion the parks and green spaces that act as the green hearts and lungs of our communities, we brought Have a Field Day, UK's Best Park 2019 and the Green Space Index together as part of one long ‘Summer of Parks’. Between mid-May and mid-September 2019, we celebrated everything that we all love about our local parks and green spaces, leading discussions on the issues affecting parks and giving you plenty of opportunities to get involved along the way.
Discover
There's lots of ways to champion parks and green spaces. Explore our Green Space Index, celebrate your local green space with UK's Best Park and picnic with Have a Field Day!
Green Space Index: Our new barometer of publicly accessible green space provision
UK's Best Park: Celebrate your favourite local green space - voting now closed
The conversation
Each week throughout the Summer of Parks we led a conversation on a different theme relating to parks and green spaces. You can find all the content from each week on the below pages.
Introduction:
to the Summer of Parks
Provision:
w/b 27th May
Informal communities:
w/b 3rd June
Funding of parks:
w/b 10th June
Celebrating parks:
w/b 17th June
Park management and maintenance:
w/b 24th June
Friends of groups:
w/b 1st July
Sporting journeys:
w/b 8th July
Heritage of parks:
w/b 15th July
Nature in parks:
w/b 22nd July
Parks and planning:
w/b 29th July
Parks and play:
w/b 5th August
One small thing
The easiest way to make a difference to parks and green spaces near you is to do one small thing each week.
- Provision (w/b 27th May) - Choose your favourite park or green space, preferably one that is local or that you use regularly!
- Informal communities (w/b 3rd June) - Plan a Have a Field Day picnic at your local park or green space for Saturday 6th July.
- Funding of parks (w/b 10th June) - See if you can find out how much is spent on parks and green spaces locally to you each year.
- Celebrating parks (w/b 17th June) - Check if your local green space has been nominated for UK’s Best Park and if not, nominate it!
- Management and maintenance (w/b 24th June) - Visit your local park or green space and pick up five pieces of litter.
- Friends of groups (w/b 1st July) - Find out if your local park has a Friends of group and if it does see if they have any upcoming events you could go to.
- Sporting journeys (w/b 8th July) - Think of sporting achievements you made at your local park or green space when you were younger.
- Heritage of parks (w/b 15th July) - See if you can find out something about the history of your local park.
- Nature in parks (w/b 22nd July) - See if you can discover some nature you haven't found before.
- Parks and planning (w/b 29th July) - Find out if you have a local neighbourhood plan and if you do to see what it says about parks and green spaces.
- Parks and play (w/b 5th August) - Consider what opportunties for play currently exist at your local park.
- Organised sport in parks (w/b 12th August) - Find out what organised sports take place in your park.
- Universality of parks (w/b 19th August) - Take a trip to your park and consider how well it caters for both eight year olds and 80 year olds.
- Health and wellbeing (w/b 26th August) - Spend at least ten minutes in your local park each day this week.
- Protecting our parks (w/b 2nd September) - Research protection of your park. Firstly, put your postcode into our Fields Finder to see if your local green space is already protected. If it isn't, try to find out who owns the park, who your local Councillors are and who your local MP is.
From the Minister
Our Summer of Parks welcomes Chief Secretary to the Treasury, formerly Parks and Green Spaces Minister, The Rt. Hon. Rishi Sunak MP, who discusses current developments in the sector and shares his 'favourite five'.
Read more
About Fields in Trust
Fields in Trust is an independent charity with over 90 years’ experience protecting parks and green spaces. We work with landowners, community groups and policy makers to champion the value of our parks and green spaces to achieve better protection for their future at both local and national level.
You can donate to support our work to protect, support and champion green spaces for good.
