News
GSNW Network News
Issue 22, September 2011Brief bulletin, late August 2011
Issue 21, August 2011
Issue 20, July 2011
Survey to reveal direction of parks and green spaces
GSNW has received a fantastic response from over 70% of local councils in both the North West and West Midlands, (thank you), on the ways in which councils plan for and set the direction of their parks and green spaces.This will form a report to Natural England, engaged stakeholders and all respondents who will all be invited to a free full day event to aid their role in green space delivery. The need to set direction for the function, investment and management of all types of green space is as fundamental as household, service or business planning.
No one would imagine spending their time, skills and money on something they don't need or have at least have thought about its wider benefits: To spend on implementation without policy plans could waste such resources and likewise policy needs to be able to be implemented and sustained for failure to do so has the same wasteful results.
We understand that for some this may not necessarily be through Green Space or Open Space Strategies so the research by GSNW sought to determine how councils do this and what support they feel would help them do it better. With over three-quarters of the 33 local authorities in West Midland and the 41 in the North West responding can we assume that this demonstrates the level of commitment to all types of green space and the multitude of functions they support and of benefits they offer by our local councils? The full report will be available for release soon.
GSNW, Keep Britain Tidy and APSE
GSNW welcomed APSE as members of the North West GreenSpace forum and began to formalise joint working with Keep Britain Tidy.As the three leading charitable organisations supporting local authorities across the North West it makes sense to work collaboratively; sharing specialist skills and knowledge to help councils through such challenging times. Many local authorities recognise the importance of developing remaining employees with wider skill sets, benchmarking performance and efficiencies, seeking out quality, sharing evidence and case studies to aid dwindling resources and seek out new delivery mechanisms.
They describe each organisation as responding to different needs individually but all in the related services of environment, community, leisure etc. GreenSpace North West's sole focus is parks and green spaces, their communities, localities, provision, management and purpose.
GreenSpace North West sponsors APSE Awards
GreenSpace North West was delighted to sponsor the Parks, Open Spaces and Horticulture awards at the Apse Performance Network Awards 2010 on 2nd December 2010.Kirsty Rhind, Manager of GreenSpace North West presented together with Shobna Gulati the Best Performer in Parks, Open Spaces and Horticulture – Stockton on Tees Council and the Most Improving Performer for the same category Dumfries and Galloway Council.
She spoke of how such national awards "provide great encouragement and enthusiasm for all employees involved. And demonstrates the investment of all those councils nominated in improving staff knowledge and skill development in horticultural standards which is crucial for the sector as a whole and especially for high quality local parks and open spaces."