Open Space Strategy

What is it?

The Council adopted the Glasgow Open Space Strategy (OSS) at the City Administration Committee of 6 February 2020.  

The OSS is a corporate strategy that will align the work of various council services to deliver a variety of benefits for people and nature in Glasgow in line with the strategy's three outcomes - enhancing:

• the City's Liveability, increasing its attractiveness as a place in which to live, work, move around, study and invest;
• the Health and Wellbeing of the City's human population and of its flora and fauna; and
• the long term Resilience of the City in relation to issues such as climate change.

Open Space Strategy Delivery Plan

The OSS sets out how the City can utilise its many, varied open spaces to help deliver the three outcomes, based on analysis of 15 different ways in which open space can benefit the City, including for: play, recreation; formal sport; food growing; habitat creation; active travel; and flood management.  

Funding from the European Unions Horizon 2020 Connecting Nature programme is providing funding and expertise to provide a better understanding of these aspects of current and future need, this will inform the production of an OSS Delivery Plan (OSSDP) for the City.  

The process for producing the OSSDP will consider potential synergies between all of the aspects of open space need, helping clarify how the City's open spaces should be used to address all aspects of open space need in the longer term.  

This process will be informed by engagement with local communities and local organisations.

The 15 Local Context Analysis documents were produced to support the draft OSS can be found under related documents.  These provided an early indication of how the OSS might be delivered in the City and are available to view.

Open Space Standards

The OSS contains a set of Open Space Standards which constitute a key aspect of need.  The Council considers that an important component of successful places is local access to good quality open space that a variety of people want to use.  

Accessibility and Quality Standards have been developed to help achieve this.  A Quantity Standard will be used to better understand the distribution of public open space throughout the City, and where new spaces may need to be delivered, the standards will form part of the Development Plan's Supplementary Guidance SG6 - this will be produced later in 2020 for public consultation.  

They will help determine locations where new or enhanced open space should be provided to support new development and will also determine whether a financial contribution should be taken from developers for this purpose.

Open Space Map

The Glasgow Open Space Map is an audit of the City's open spaces. The interactive map illustrates the amount, type and distribution of open spaces which are protected under the City Development Plan.

Each space has been given a typology based on the advice set out in the Scottish Government's Planning Advice Note 65.  The "splash screen" that opens when you click on the map link provides further information.

The Council will review the accuracy of the Open Space Map on an ongoing basis.