No Stump City: The Contestation and Politics of Urban Street-Trees – A Case Study of Sheffield

an article by Ian D. Rotherham and Matthew Flinders (Sheffield Hallam University, UK) published in People, Place and Policy Volume 12 Issue 3 (February 2019)

Abstract

Issues of sustainable development, liveable cities, green infrastructure, and urban ecosystem services currently receive attention from researchers and decision-makers. Furthermore, the benefits to public wellbeing and health of high quality open spaces and green areas are now undisputed (e.g. Simson, 2008; Booth, 2005, 2006).

However, with increasing pressure on urban landscapes for competing uses like housing-development green-spaces are under threat. Furthermore, austerity-driven cuts to local authority budgets mean loss of core services and skills relating to open-space management and planning. Some local authorities such as Newcastle City Council are withdrawing all expenditure on parks and community spaces. With major challenges in providing good quality urban green-spaces, the loss of most local authority countryside management services from 2008 onwards, reflects bigger problems (see Rotherham, 2014, 2015 for example).

Within this wider scenario has been the growing importance of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) to deliver core environmental and green-space services in many urban areas. These have been seen as possible fixes for the current waves of austerity cuts and many local authorities such as Sheffield City Council have gone down this route.

Nevertheless, real costs (financial and otherwise) of Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs) are now emerging (Syal, 2018). There are also issues of public access to information once contracts become ‘commercially sensitive’ and of profit-driven delivery of core ‘public benefit’ services. These changes threaten ‘local environmental democracy’ as part of a wider shift in democratic processes (Flinders, 2012, 2017).

This paper examines wider issues of austerity-driven cuts to green-space services, of PFI projects, and of local environmental democracy. It takes the Sheffield street-trees initiative as an exemplar case-study to interrogate the broad concerns.

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Establishing the costs of poor green space management: mistrust, financing & future development options in the UK

an article by Ian Mell (University of Manchester, UK) published in People, Place and Policy Volume 12 Issue 2 (December 2018)

Abstract

The ongoing austerity programme of the current UK government is placing stresses on Local Planning Authorities (LPAs), as they attempt to deliver statutory and discretionary services. As a discretionary service, green space provision has been identified as a service that can be cut to balance the accounts of many LPAs.

The following article assesses local government, business and residential communities, and environmental stakeholder responses to green infrastructure funding. It comments upon the politicisation of landscape management, and illustrates the mechanisms available to advocates to adopt alternative approaches to financing.

Reflecting on a series of case studies from England the article examines innovative practice, as well as identifying where conflicts remain. The article concludes that rethinking existing funding mechanisms is essential to establish a viable economic model for funding green spaces in the future.

Full text (HTML) includes an extensive bibliography which may interest some readers.

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The future of Public Parks in England: policy tensions in funding, management and governance

an article by Lynn Crowe (Sheffield Hallam University, UK) published in People, Place and Policy Volume 12 Issue 2 (December 2018)

Abstract

This paper examines the challenges for effective public parks management caused by increasing pressures on local authority funding due to the UK government’s austerity measures.

Current policy discourse calls for innovative and entrepreneurial approaches to resolving these challenges. This can bring real benefits and creative approaches to parks management, not least in terms of community engagement and the recognition of the wider public services provided by parks.

But tensions can also develop due to increasing dependency on volunteers and third sector organisations, the commodification of spaces and the commercialisation of services, even privatisation. Such conflicts may potentially undermine democratic accountability and a sense of community ownership, and potentially threaten the effective management of parks generally.

The paper concludes that current UK government policy is moving away from a social welfare model of public parks provision, and that we need to fully understand the impacts of these changes in order to avoid inadvertently reinforcing this approach to public service provision.

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