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The long-delayed access to nature green paper must address the gross inequalities in public contact with the outdoors, says our general secretary Kate Ashbrook. The green paper was announced in the government’s Environmental Improvement Plan in December 2025—but regrettably given no priority.
Kate writes in her Opinion in the spring issue of Open Space, our members’ magazine: We are told, however, that work will start on it this year. Among its aims will be to ‘make sure that everyone has access to green or blue spaces within a 15-minute walk from home’. We’ve heard this pledge before, from the previous government in 2023, and the case for it only grows stronger as the years pass.
Perception
Natural England has recently published research, Local Greenspaces in Everyday Life, revealing that 27 per cent of people in England do not live within a 15-minute walk of a green space, and that those in the most socially-deprived areas, who need that green space most, have the least access to it. The quality of the space is just as vital as its proximity to people, because those unused to it will have a low perception of its safety, and be less likely to go there and enjoy it.
There is nothing new about this—it is common sense. Governments have made numerous inquiries into parks and green space over the years, all agreeing upon their importance but their inadequacy.
Government officials constantly remind us of the primacy of economic benefit. The Reconomics 3.0 report, commissioned by the Sport and Recreation Alliance, provides ammunition: outdoor recreation is worth £22bn a year to the economy, produces savings of £5bn for the NHS, and lifts people’s mental well-being. Adult volunteering outdoors is worth £2.3bn, and also brings unquantifiable benefits of ‘strengthening communities’, and providing ‘a connection with nature’.
The money generated, and that saved, should be invested in our parks and green spaces, to produce even greater benefits—financial, physical, and social—for those who have least access. That means solid, long-term commitment, not flashy, time-limited projects. Local authorities should have the funds, alongside a statutory duty, to provide, manage, and maintain parks. The abuse of parks for lucrative commercial events must stop; they keep people out and degrade the terrain.
Encouraged
To create accessible space, landowners should be encouraged to register village greens voluntarily, and this must be made a condition of development. It would provide spaces where they are most useful—next to homes.
Along with this, the green paper should recommend legislation to grant greater access rights to natural places near where people live: woodlands and watersides, and on water too. Government must also invest in our public-path network which gives those who are unfamiliar with the outdoors the confidence to discover it.
We need that green paper now!