It is well-established that good quality green spaces play an important role in health and wellbeing. Despite planning regulations, many new developments in the UK fail to deliver the high-quality green spaces promised. This research investigates why this happens, its impact on communities and ecologies, and how to ensure green space commitments are fulfilled.
What are the aims of the project?
- To explore why green space provisions in new developments are often not delivered as planned, how this affects human and ecological wellbeing, and how to improve compliance within the UK planning system.
- The project explores and incorporates the concept of “disavowal” to help understand these failures, whereby human and ecological crises are simultaneously known and ignored.
What methods are we using?
This research combines:
- Quantitative analysis: Auditing green space delivery in new housing estates.
- Qualitative research: Exploration of the impacts on communities through narrative methods.
- Citizen science and co-production: Co-developing a toolkit to enable local communities to monitor green space delivery.
What is the importance of this research?
While extensive research highlights the health and wellbeing benefits of well-designed green spaces, little attention has been given to their failure in implementation. Addressing this gap is crucial for improving the quality of urban green spaces provided and their cascading impacts on ecological-collective-flourishing.
What are the implications of this research?
We aim to intervene meaningfully in planning policy debates and to achieve impact via improvements in the quality of green spaces provided on new housing estates across the UK. Research findings have already been translated into briefings for policymakers by Royal Town Planning Institute and highlighted at the Environmental Audit Committee.
Who are we partnering with?
Current and potential collaborators include Wild Justice, Planning Democracy, Community Planning Alliance, Campaign to Protect Rural England, Stark Building Company, and Royal Horticultural Society. The project emphasises co-production, particularly in developing the community audit toolkit.
What’s next?
As we move forward, we will attempt to expand the green space audit into a citizen science initiative and overcome data access barriers to improve transparency in planning compliance. We will also investigate further how community groups view and value nature, and how this differs from the attitudes of built environment professionals, including planners and ecologists.
For more details, visit Wild Justice – Lost Nature Report.
Key researchers:
