Why are green spaces important?
Residents of social housing are more likely to live in areas of public open space deficiency and poor environmental quality. Research suggests that there is a strong correlation between economic and environmental deprivation. Poorer communities tend to live in more polluted, less green, locations. They are proportionately less likely to have easy access to open space, whether a private garden, or a public park within a 5 minute walk. They are also more likely (due to their age and/or cultural links) to avoid public parks and open spaces due to fears over their safety, or other barriers, and less likely to afford access to paid-for recreational pursuits.From a landlord's perspective, financial pressures to keep rents and service charges down, and to manage anti-social behaviour, are not conducive to finding additional expenditure to manage and maintain spaces outside the home. Yet cleaner streets, community safety, improved parks, reduced vandalism, etc. ('Liveability' issues) came in the top four of all responses in a residents' survey to determine "what would most improve the quality of life in your area" (MORI, 2000). These concerns must be considered in the context of a society that would rather pay for CCTV cameras than park keepers and where organised recreational activity for young and old in a naturalistic environment has given way to an emphasis on indoor leisure centres and private gyms. In short, social housing residents are more likely to be disadvantaged in respect of access to and the benefits from green space close to where they live. Social housing green spaces are on the doorstep of millions of people, and could provide them with some of the benefits of a quality park, including:
- tranquillity
- play-space
- communal space
- health benefits
- connection with the natural world
But a legacy of existing housing estates and their tired landscapes remains. Many stand in areas of poor natural green space provision with very limited opportunities for contact with and appreciation of the natural world. Confused perceptions about safety can further distance people from nature through the design and creation of bland landscapes which are easy to maintain, and fulfil very little.
A concern for the spaces outside the home is not generally part of the culture of those who work in the social housing sector. There is a gulf between those who envision and plan estates and properties and those who manage them. The focus is primarily on the provision of new buildings in which new communities will live. Equal emphasis must be given to the spaces around them, to provide an essential civilising feature. They are the places which nobody owns and everybody owns and when they work well, are of inestimable benefit to us all.
Drivers for change
Social housing providers must raise the bar on their involvement in green spaces. As regeneration agents, they are becoming involved in the creation of new green spaces in new developments, and concerned about their future use and care. Support for this is coming from the Housing Corporation. Their 'Affordable Housing; Better by Good Design' (2003) states that social housing providers should 'seize the opportunity of enhancing the neighbourhoods where they work through high quality design of homes and community spaces'. Design Champions (2004) raises the problems of failing to apply 'effort to show an approach to landscape design'. The challenge, however, is to ensure that this is not only understood in the context of the new communities that we will create over the next 20 years but also in applying an equivalent emphasis to existing estates. There are some good foundations; a range of innovative enhancement projects, both here and in Europe, already demonstrate what can be achieved.
