Glasgow City Council
Developing an Open Space Framework for Glasgow
During 2007 and proceeding into 2008, Glasgow City Council has worked upon a framework for the delivery of Open Space using the LEAP (learning, evaluating and Planning) process. Officers from the three Services key to this delivery, namely Development and Regeneration; Land and Environment and Culture, Sport Glasgow, together with Greenspace Scotland developed a framework to take the Open Space agenda within Glasgow through a step change towards a co-ordinated approach to Open Space provision. Four key elements were identified. These were:
· The development of a Strategic Greenspace Partnership
· An Open Space Audit
· Pursuing community engagement; and
· The development of sustainable maintenance and management practices
This interim report will comment on the progress that has been made on these four key elements..
Development of a Strategic Greenspace Partnership
The strategic greenspace partnership aims to link together the agendas of health, physical activity, economy and the environment to create, maintain and sustainable manage open spaces that are multi-functional, adaptable and welcoming. Glasgow wishes to have spaces that its citizens identify with; spaces that meet the needs of an ever changing city and spaces that meet the requirements of the Scottish Government’s Greener Scotland strategic objective. It is recognised that there needs to be a multi- sectorial approach to creating good quality environments that meet the requirements of each of these individual agendas. That by working together we can meet the government’s five main strategic objectives, specifically targeting each objective with particular emphasis on greener and healthier. Examples of partnership working that have emerged to date include the following:
1. East End Local Development Strategy
This brought together officers from the Sustainable, Neighbourhoods and Landscape & Environment Teams within DRS with officers from Parks Development in LES. The concept of green infrastructure informs the aim to create multi-functional greenspace for the East End. Its prevalent drainage problems and the need for sustainable urban drainage solutions provide a once in a lifetime opportunity to plan the green infrastructure first and then accommodate development requirements on the remaining land. Multi-functional green infrastructure involves land that meets the requirements of the drainage system but also provides a space that can be used for physical activity, biodiversity and the economy. Areas of open water built to meet drainage requirements to attenuate water provide spaces to walk around; sit beside or overlook (and which can add significant value to the properties that surround them).
The health agenda is increasingly recognising that one of the great stress busters is the ability for people to get out in the open, this is especially important in areas like the east end where there is a current lack of spaces that people feel safe and secure in. The redevelopment of the east end also provides opportunities to create both hard and soft landscapes linking into the aspirations of the Glasgow and Clyde Valley Green Network and Clyde Gateway (a national priority area). It is considered that the development of the green infrastructure within the east end will also bring economic benefits to the area by creating a sense of place and helping to define identity.
2. Officer Secondment to Glasgow South West Regeneration
An officer from Kelvin Clyde Greenspace has been on full time secondment to Glasgow South West Regeneration Agency for the past year. The secondment built on the embryonic partnership working arrangements that existed between Kelvin Clyde Greenspace and Govan Initiative. It recognises that in order to regenerate an area the improvement of the spaces within it are a critical element. The officer has led the Govan C-space project which involves redevelopment of degraded spaces in conjunction with the local community, working with the community gardeners scheme to help get the long term unemployed back into work and linking into the existing education programmes. Links have been made between the project and a similar scheme in Hamburg Germany and some of the community gardeners went over to Hamburg for a week to work on a community greenspace project.
3. Greenspace Teams
The greenspace teams have worked on a number of partnership projects. They have been involved in the wider initiatives such as WIAT, Paths for health, Forest Schools, Eco Schools and Active Schools programmes. The Kelvin Clyde Greenspace Team worked closely with Barnadoes on the CHIP project in the North of Glasgow. The greenspace teams have worked with individual schools, housing associations and communities to raise awareness about the benefits of greenspace and to work with local people to improve their local greenspaces. Increasingly this work involves working with refugee and other ethnically diverse communities which brings new forms of partnership working into play. It should also be noted that the work carried out by the Greenspace team in the development of Beardmore Park in the East End was recognised by the award of a COSLA Bronze award.
4. Placemaking Day
As a forerunner to the development of a Strategic Greenspace Partnership a joint training day in “Placemaking” was organised with Greenspace Scotland. The day, which took place in Yoker, was attended by officers from various Council Services, Culture, Sport Glasgow, Police and other community Agencies. The participants were taken through the Placemaking process. The outcome of the day will be combined with the outcomes from the community Placemaking day in Yoker, which was organised by Kelvin Clyde Greenspace.
5. Partnership Working with Glasgow and Clyde Health Board
Recent research continues to high light the inequalities that exist in health and life expectancy between certain wards in Glasgow and the Scottish average. There are wards in Glasgow where life expectancy for the male population in particular is very low. The Council has been working closely with partners in The Glasgow Centre for Population health and Glasgow and Clyde Health Board to look at how design impacts on health. Health impact assessment has been piloted within the east end to look at how design and in particular the provision of green infrastructure can be improved by assessing proposals for there health impact. The Council has also worked closely with the health board on its plans for the redevelopment of Southern General to ensure that the environment around and the connections to the wider environment surrounding the proposed acute and new national children’s hospital are making a positive contribution to the Green Network.
6. Innovative use of Spaces
Spaces within the City continue to be used in innovative and new ways. In the last six months BBC Breathing Spaces brought 30,000 people to Kelvingrove Park to have fun with green issues; the tour of Britain held its final stage in the city streets and Glasgow Green; people ran in marathons; listened to concerts; chilled out; celebrated; held festivals; local parties; played sport; watched the world go by and generally valued the spaces that felt safe and secure. The challenge is to develop more spaces; reclaim spaces back from anti social behaviour and regenerate the social ownership of spaces. Glaswegians place great credence in the fact that they are the “dear green place”; good spaces are valued and identified with. The greatest partnership that we require to continue to develop is with the people who use Glasgow whether to live, work or play in. If the Council and its partners can be positive about spaces, link the aspirations to Central Governments aims and objectives and create the conditions and opportunities for change then the cities spaces can continue to evolve in an organic and innovative way, adapting to the ever changing aspirations of the population.
7. A strategic Greenspace Partnership for Glasgow
As a precursor to the development of a greenspace partnership for Glasgow an officer group was set up to guide the development of a framework for Open space within the city. The steering group developed the first framework using the LEAP process. The first framework is the subject of this interim report. However, the framework is a living breathing document that has to continue to evolve as officers have learned, evaluated and planned through out the process. The evolving framework was shared with officers from Scottish Natural Heritage in late summer and the positive feedback has fed into further evaluating and planning. Throughout the process Greenspace Scotland have worked very closely with the Council in recognition of the complexity of the open space issues within Glasgow. The Council is a full partner in the Glasgow and Clyde Valley Green Network and has representation on the board of Greenspace Scotland and works very closely with the Central Scotland conservatory of Forestry Commission Scotland. Close working relationships are key to the frameworks success and relationships are being developed with Glasgow and Clyde Health Board (as demonstrated above) Glasgow Housing Association, Community Planning within Glasgow, Scottish Enterprise Glasgow and other agencies that operate a green agenda within the city. These early partnerships are developing a shared vision and this now requires to be developed with a wider audience. An exploratory meeting with possible key partners has been arranged for 22nd October 2007. A geographical and sectorial representative audience has been invited to explore how a partnership could evolve and who requires to be involved. A briefing is to be prepared for the politicians on the work todate.
An Open Space Audit
The first iteration of the Openspace framework talked about the development of an openspace audit, the process recognised but did not make visible that this would lead to the development of an openspace Strategy for Glasgow. The evolving framework now makes this a clear outcome of the audit. In order to carry out an audit on a city with such diverse spaces a baseline has to be identified. That baseline was set by the Glasgow and Clyde Valley Structure Plan team (GCVSP) in the development of their typology map based on Pan 65 and by the Council in the policies that it lays down within its Local Plan, known in Glasgow as the City Plan. The following actions have been undertaken in the move towards producing and audit and strategy:
1. City Plan
The evolving work on the Openspace framework has helped to shape the policies that have been developed for the emerging City Plan 2, Glasgow’s Local Plan. The policies aim to ensure that the green infrastructure is a critical element in the design of the city and that the design policies are at the heart of the plan. The green infrastructure should be protected from development pressure and provide opportunities for biodiversity, geology; development of a variety of spaces and opportunities for increased economic benefit. The main openspace policy has been linked to the GCVSP developed openspace typologies map (PAN 65 map). The policy aims to protect from development land identified on this map. An open debate has been started to ensure that officers within the Council and the public are aware that land shown on the PAN 65 map is not development land, however development land can be greened whilst it is awaiting development.
2. Openspace typology map (PAN 65 map)
It is recognised that in order to make the Pan 65 Map useable it requires to be ground truthed. The map was developed by consultants from the assessment of recent aerial photographs. The information now requires to be validated on the ground in order to make it a useful planning tool. Work is ongoing to develop a methodology to undertake this work.
3. Environet and the State of the Environment Report
Changes in legislation now require the Council to carry out Strategic Environmental assessment on plans, policies and strategies that are deemed to have an environment impact whether positive or negative. Up to date environmental information is required for the development of the openspace framework. A bid has been put into Access Glasgow for the development of an environmental database to be known as Environet. This database will attempt to bring together all the environmental information held by the Council that relates to Strategic Environmental Assessment and create and entry port that means that the information is never more than 3 clicks away from the entry point on a user’s desktop computer. The database will link to external data sources that are held by partners and hopefully present the Council’s own information in a more user friendly way. The project hopes to develop 3 different platforms for accessing the information: an internet version for external users; an intranet version for general internal queries and a more sophisticated GIS based intranet version for interrogation by officers. The initial external output from the project will be the production of a State of the Environment Report for Glasgow.
4. Landscape Strategy and Characterisation
Glasgow has carried out work in the past on the development of a Landscape Strategy and characterisation for Glasgow. This work led to the designation of sites of importance for Landscape within the City. In order to develop an openspace audit and strategy for the city this work is being revisited and redeveloped to fit a 21st century city.
5. Local audits of Greenspace and Access
The Greenspace team in partnership with the Outdoor Access Officer has carried out two in-depth audits of greenspace and access within Greater Easterhouse and Greater Govan. These studies will feed into the groundtruthing of the Pan 65 map; help to develop work programmes for the greenspace teams and create opportunities for further partnership working. A third study in the East End was jointly commission by the Council’s Outdoor Access Officer, The Greenspace Team and Clyde Gateway to audit access and greenspace in the East End. The outcomes of this project were fed into the East End Local Development Strategy and informed the work of a commission by the Green Network, Scottish Enterprise Glasgow and Lanarkshire, South Lanarkshire Council, Glasgow City Council and Clyde Gateway to develop a Green Network Strategy for Clyde Gateway.
6. The Draft Glasgow Core Path Plan
Throughout the summer the Draft Glasgow Core Path has been out on informal consultation. This has allowed the officers to talk to over 3000 people at events such as the Glasgow Show and BBC Breathing Spaces about connectivity. The community consultation provided opportunities to talk spaces in a new and different way. Initial positive feedback indicates that people want active spaces that they feel safe and secure passing through. The outcomes of the development of the plan will feed back into the wider openspace agenda.
Pursuing community engagement
Community Engagement is being pursued at a number of different levels within Glasgow linked to the openspace framework. At a local level public satisfaction surveys are undertaken within parks; friends groups are encouraged to develop to support individual parks and the public are consulted on new developments within publicly owned spaces. A number of large events have been organised within public spaces over the last 6 months this includes:
· Maydaze
· Glasgow Mela
· Playday
· BBC Proms and Film Festival
· BBC Springwatch
· Glasgow Show
· Pollok Family fun day
A series of Greenspace workshops have been held in each of the Community Planning areas to identify community aspirations for greenspace and how best use can be made of funding that may be available by using the planning gain process. More detailed information is included within the openspace framework.
The development of sustainable maintenance and management practices
The current budget constraints placed on Councils and partners means that the development of sustainable maintenance and management practices is becoming increasingly important. The openspace framework details some of the progress that has been made toward fulfilling this element. It is recognised that new methods require to be developed. Officers have attended the study tour to Dearne Valley which was organised by the GCVSP Green Network. This looked at alternative methods for funding the provision of greenspace and its subsequent maintenance. It also looked at how you could increase community engagement by the different use of spaces and by allowing people to enjoy a positive experience in the spaces provided.
The way forward
The continued evaluation, learning and planning of the openspace framework will open up opportunities for the development of new partnerships; innovative consultation and community engagement; new ways of creating and maintaining sustainable spaces. Modern research indicates that engagement with natural environment helps to develop soci-economic opportunities; skills; confidence and helps in the development of feelings of well-being. Over 100 years ago Patrick Geddes reacting to the prevalent health problems in cities like Edinburgh and started to evolve the basis of the modern planning system. He believed that early engagement from childhood directly and practically with the natural environment created a positive outcome that was carried through to adulthood and then passed on through the generations. The garden city movement of Abercrombie built on this. In the late 20th century development pressures meant that greenspace fell to the bottom of the priority list. In the 21st century through the development of an outword looking, innovative and sustainable framework for it’s open space Glasgow aims to look and learn from the best of the past, recognise that the requirement for modern green infrastructure to meet the demands of an ever changing climate now mean that greenspace is rising to the top of the priority list. Multi-functional, adaptable, sustainable, welcoming, happy spaces are what Glasgow wants and deserves.