Reimagining Parks
With cost-of-living and mental health crises, and global environmental emergency, it’s a no-brainer that more people need to access parks, which are free to enjoy and transformational for health and nature.
So in May 2024, we marked our fifth anniversary with the launch of our biggest campaign yet, Reimagining Parks.
We are making real change and showing just how important access to green space is.
200,000 people shut out
Our work and research since 2019 has evidenced the key factors preventing people from using parks and benefitting their health:
- physical accessibility (including entrances, surfaces, toilets or poorly introduced habitats)
- personal safety (for example lighting or blocked lines of sight)
- mental wellbeing (such as not feeling able to due to anxiety).
We know it’s a similar story all over the country. Our work is smashing down barriers to help everyone benefit from green space.
With your support
You are helping:
- Create an exemplar park that is fully accessible for all disabilities: Hartcliffe Millennium Green, Bristol
- Create an exemplar park redesigned by women and girls: Brickfields Park, Bath
- Host regular sensory walks, supported play sessions, family activities and accessible gardening in every neighbourhood in Bristol and Bath for 2,000 people
- Expand our in-nature mental health therapy service Roots to Wellbeing to 500 people a year through sessions in two extra areas of health deprivation, and by introducing out of hours activities for people in employment or education.
Leading the change
Our ambition is for everyone in Bristol and Bath to have a park that is accessible to them close to home.
The people shut out and we aim to reach are:
- Disabled people
- unpaid carers
- women and girls
- minority ethnic groups
- people in low-income/disadvantaged areas.