Introduction
The quality of people's homes is influenced by the spaces around them. There is increasing recognition that well-designed, well-managed green spaces next to housing developments are crucial to contributing to people's quality of life and making neighbourhoods liveable.The Decent Homes Standard is focusing the minds of housing associations and other social housing providers. The Standard, introduced in July 2001 with the intention of improving the quality of social housing in England, is set to ensure that such accommodation is fit for the 21st century. Government expects all social rented homes to meet the Standard by 2010.
Government is also addressing the declining quality of many of our parks and urban green spaces. The publication of new policy guidance, the establishment of CABE Space and the rolling out of a variety of funding programmes, aims to raise the standard of our urban green spaces to make our towns and cities better places in which to live, work and play.
However, of all our urban landscapes, those of social housing estates are generally some of our worst, apart from some notable exceptions. The quality of open spaces within and around social housing estates has declined dramatically since their creation, leaving many under-used, in a state of neglect, or no-go areas. Accumulative dis-investment, the lack of statutory obligations, a haemorrhage of 'green' skills, and the competition for car-parking are just some of the factors that have contributed to their decline.
This decline mirrors that of public parks. The Government is now turning its attention to the places around housing and wants to see the improvements being achieved in our parks extended to all types of urban green space to counteract concerns that the spaces in and around social housing are not meriting the attention they deserve. The Neighbourhoods Green conference, organised by Notting Hill Housing Group, Peabody Trust, English Nature, and CABE Space, highlighted these issues, and set out plans to establish a project to address them for social housing providers, which resulted in the Neighbourhoods Green Project.
For more information about the project please click here
Definition of Green Space
Green spaces are defined on this web-site as primarily the vegetated spaces in and around social housing properties, unless detailed otherwise. They include communal greens, gardens (communal and private), trees and shrubberies, planters and raised beds, and verges, as well as other open space predominantly of an amenity value, such as play-spaces and ball-courts. The definition excludes car-parking, roads and other thoroughfares, although it is recognised that these affect and are affected by the quality of green spaces by them.
This is consistent with the typology and definitions set out in PPG17 (Open Space, Sport and Recreation) (ODPM, 2002), under Annex; Definitions (v); "amenity greenspace (most commonly, but not exclusively in housing areas) - including informal recreation spaces, greenspaces in and around housing, domestic gardens and village greens." We recognise, however, that many social housing providers may be responsible for other types of green spaces (such as ornmanental ponds) or working with their residents on improvements to public parks, allotments or other spaces, and Neighbourhoods Green will acknowledge these in our guidance and information.
