The Good Parks for London 2024 report, a two-yearly assessment of London borough park services, was released on Thursday 24th October, the theme of this year’s report is Collaborative Solutions.
Good Parks for London, established by Parks for London, aims to improve and celebrate park services across London, encouraging boroughs to incorporate sustainability, accessibility and community well-being and highlight the work that London boroughs and other land managers do to maintain and develop London’s parks and green spaces. The report promotes good practice, raising quality standards and help lobby to protect park budgets and resources.
This year, Wandsworth’s Parks received special recognition for remarkable improvement, climbing to 8th place from 21st in the previous 2022 report! Wandsworth scored particularly highly in the criteria of Public Satisfaction, Collaboration, Health, Fitness and Wellbeing and Supporting Nature. Wandsworth was represented at the report’s launch event, which was attended by over 50 industry colleagues, and hosted by WSP (Williams Sale Partnership)
The report assesses how London borough parks services perform against the Good Parks criteria and showcases exemplary work in those ten areas, detailing the challenges and innovative solutions faced across the sector. The Enable Parks Team, who manage and maintain the borough’s parks and greenspaces on behalf of Wandsworth Council, featured a case study on the important Citizen Science work they have undertaken which empowers the local community to actively engage in monitoring biodiversity and informing evidence-based conservation efforts.
The case study focuses on the engaging amphibian and bat surveys conducted by Enable at Tooting and Wandsworth Commons. This ongoing work fosters a deeper connection between the community and their green spaces and their involvement in local biodiversity conservation.
“Our citizen science surveying has been hugely successful this year with local residents and community groups regularly surveying and collecting data with us across Wandsworth. Volunteers have used torchlights to search for amphibians around pond habitats, and bat detectors to identify which bats are flying where on the Common. All of this valuable data will be used to better understand the borough’s biodiversity and to enhance and improve the habitats these species rely on.” Brieannah Mollison-Read, Enable Citizen Science Officer.
Through grassroots involvement like this, we have enriched our understanding of local biodiversity and at the same time fostered a sense of empowerment in residents.
“It has been great to see the recognition of Wandsworth Parks as some of the best in London. The dramatic increase in ranking this year is testament to the hard work by all in the Parks team and the progress made in improving greenspaces across the borough. We will continue to look to improve by further educating management based on biodiversity data, community engagement and long term aims for the spaces.” Owen Dodgson, Enable Parks Delivery Manager.
As we build on these successes, Wandsworth remains steadfast in its commitment to fostering a biodiverse and sustainable future for the Borough, driven by collaboration, innovation, and community engagement.
Congratulations to Lewisham for being named the top performing borough in 2024!
