Make Parks Sexy Again! - the joy of parks with Paul Rabbitts

HortWeek Podcast

Veteran, and very proud 'Parkie' Paul Rabbitts (currently working at Norwich City Council) fell into parks work after qualifying as a "really bad" landscape architect.

Finding "everything was going down the route of being computer aided design and CAD - that sent a cold shiver down my back" he thought "I don't want to do this...which is one of the reasons why I moved into managing parks. Thank God!"

His latest tome, People's Parks: the Design and Development of Victorian Parks in Britain, continues where the late parks historian Hazel Conway's People's Parks left off. It explores parks "beyond the Victorian era, right, through the Garden Cities movement, right up through austerity, Covid" and on.

"I just felt it was timely to bring what she'd done up to date but also kind of reinvigorate...interest in the kind of history and heritage of parks and why we have them, why we enjoy them and why they're so important".

Among the fascinating facts unearthed during the research of the book was the vast difference in staffing of parks, with hundreds of qualified gardeners and park keepers employed in the days of London County Council. He also explores "Parkitecture" over the years, the marked change in the number and design of children's play areas, changes in parks management, tendering, and of course, funding leading to "a decline and eroding of what we do in parks."

As ever on the Horticulture Week Podcast, the issue of labour shortages arises: "How is it you will attract somebody to work in parks these days? There's no pathway like they used to be. No career pathway at all...We're not getting the applications and where we are getting them, the quality is not very good."

He speaks with characteristic passion about his love for the work he does and the work being done by Parks Management Association, APSE and other organisations to "make parks sexy again!"

He also discusses severe local authority budget cuts and financial constraints which have forced some, such as Birmingham, into bankrupcy plus the myriad of pressures post Covid and arising from the 'cost of living crisis'.

The logical consequence of all this is, he says, "there is going to be a greater emphasis on the third sector and on volunteers" and a "greater emphasis on commercialization".

So, times are hard, he says, "but actually there's some really good stuff going on out there. I mean, the number of friends groups that we've got across the country are just incredible.

As a Green Flag awards judge, Paul gets to see the best of parks and sometimes the most curious, like a bear pit "in the middle of the Wirral"

There are plenty of reasons to be cheerful as some local authorities are "really making a difference".

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