Bristol and Bath-based charity, Your Park Bristol & Bath, is marking its fifth anniversary with the launch of an ambitious 12-month campaign to reimagine the two cities’ parks and green spaces and tackle the barriers that it believes means around a third of the local population is prevented from being able to access or fully enjoy them.
Your Park Bristol & Bath says the majority of the c. 580 parks and green spaces across the two cities are not inclusively designed, which significantly impacts access to them – in particular, for Disabled people and carers, women and girls, minority ethnic groups, and people in low income areas.
According to the charity, the three key factors preventing people from having the confidence or ability to get out into their local parks are physical accessibility, personal safety and mental wellbeing.
Its Reimagining Parks campaign, which launches on 9 May, aims to start leading the change, and has set itself a huge ambition for everyone in Bristol and Bath to have a park that is accessible to them within a ten-minute reach of where they live, work or study. That means making them physically accessible for Disabled people and their carers, designed with the safety and enjoyment of women and girls in mind, and used to support people with mental health issues.
It is kicking off the 12-month campaign with a six week £30k fundraising challenge to enable it to get initial work underway in both cities, but it hopes to attract further funding beyond that to help it deliver all of its targets. All donations during this period will be matched by Aviva.
Key targets for the year include:
The campaign is being officially launched on 9 May at Hartcliffe Millennium Green, which is in a part of Bristol recognised as having one of the highest rates of health deprivation, green space deprivation and Disabled residents. YPBB has been working with the community in Hartcliffe for the past two years and has just completed an accessibility assessment with local Disabled people and carers, laying the groundwork for actionable plans to improve accessibility.
Whilst the maintenance of parks in both cities is the responsibility of the two local authorities, they are supported by YPBB, which was created five years ago as only the second UK parks charity to come out of Nesta’s Rethinking Parks programme. In spite of the pandemic, YPBB has firmly established itself thanks to a dedicated core team and supporting volunteers. In 2023, it supported more than 3,000 people through its activities.
For more information about the Reimagining Parks campaign or to donate to the £30k Crowdfunder, please go to https://yourpark.org.uk/reimagining-parks.