Park Land: How open data can improve our urban green spaces

Our urban green space is a valuable national amenity The UK population is overwhelmingly urban.. 80% 20% live in other areas live in urban areas .and is becoming more so 18.9% 16.5% 12% Manchester Leicester London Population growth 2001-11 Urban green spaces matter a great deal to people 93% 92% think public green spaces are important to have nearby visit public green spaces Urban green space is very popular. Relative to their size, some urban parks are more visited than theme parks. Average annual visitors per hectare 300,000 - 250,000 - 200,000- 150,000 - 100,000- 50,000- Kensington Gar dens The Regent's Park Alton Towers but it is coming under pressure... Pressure on urban green space is increasing Increasing urban population means more land is required for development 33333 Local authority budget cuts have led to reduced public spending on green space Green belt restricts supply of urban land for development Green belt restricts supply of urban land for development Urban spending on North East open spaces in England North West -38.7% 62.6% Yorkshire & Humber -12.7% 75.3% -10.5% -11.9% 68.9% East Midlands and is not evenly distributed across -23.4% 48.9% the regions, or by levels of urban living West Midlands East of -12.7% 65.3% England -8.6% 36.8% South West -18.5% 38.9% London Key South East -8.8% 100% Open space Proportien n spending -3.4% 49.5% urban areas ..and we know surprisingly little about it Publicly available datasets vastly underestimate the amount of urban green space City of Westminster (40% underestimation of green space by public datasets) Merged publicly avallable urban green space data Manually mapped urban green spaces Data on urban green space is incomplete and unreliable So what can we do? The single most important step we can take to improve our green spaces is to provide accurate and detailed urban green space data. We need to create a National Urban Green Space Map OS or another organisation would create an urban green space map and make the data freely available This would be complemented by a crowd-sourced urban green space map with a ratings system so people can rate the quality of their local green spaces To find out more about the problems facing our urban green spaces and how open data and an urban green space map will help, visit: bit.ly/pxgreenspace #greenspace Policy Exchange www.policyexchange.org.uk St James's Park Green Park Greenwich Park Hyde Park Primrose Hill Legoland Windsor Thorpe Park from 2010/11 to 201 2/13