Green flag for go!

The Green Flag award scheme was created by the Pesticides Trust [now PAN UK] in partnership with the Institute for Leisure Amenity Management, English Nature and the Chartered Institute of Water and Amenity Management. It has developed with such success over the past three years that it needed a new dedicated management structure. Following a rigorous selection process, the Civic Trust was invited to manage the scheme. Michael Gwilliam writes about his thoughts on taking on the project.

At the 1999/2000 year ceremony, the 35 Green Flag Park Award winners receive their flags and award certificates in the historic settings of the London Guildhall.

I was delighted when the Civic Trust was asked to take on the management of the Green Flag Park Award scheme earlier this year. In the last few weeks the transfer has occurred and I will explain why I am delighted later in this short article. Before doing so it is worth clarifying two points.
    Firstly, I deliberately use the phrase ‘take on’ not ‘take over’. Although day-to-day management and responsibility for the scheme will now rest with the Civic Trust, the original project Steering Group remains in place and the project continues very much as a partnership between the founder members, but now with the addition of the Civic Trust.
    Secondly, the Civic Trust’s interest stems from its own role as a national environmental charity dedicated to improving the quality of life, and especially the built environment, in urban areas. We have a commitment to higher standards of buildings but an equal commitment to improving the spaces and the wider public realm within which those buildings sit. Our focus nowadays is quite as much on people as on structures, and all of this of course in a sustainable development context. Parks and other green spaces are clearly a very vital element in this changing mosaic of urban life. We have been involved with nearly 400 new regeneration projects in the last 12 years, and in the great majority greenspace has been a vital consideration. Our commitment and relevant experience are therefore clear.
    Why then were we so pleased to become involved with Green Flag? First and foremost because it is an excellent programme. The criteria for awards have been rigorously designed after extensive consultation, and now cover the full spectrum of social, economic and environmental considerations in a sustainability context. The Awards are also backed by a comprehensive guidance manual ‘Raising the Standard’ which provides an effective basis for benchmarking and quality assurance.
    Secondly because the Awards have been tested well on a three year pilot programme, and are now the right product at the right time. Two major national policy documents published in 1999 illustrate this point. In July the report of Lord Rogers’ Urban Task Force ‘Towards an Urban Renaissance’ placed considerable and welcome emphasis on the need to manage and invest in our parks and green space much better than in the recent past. They called for new programmes, plans and resources in the context of a clarion call for improvement to the whole civic realm. In October this was followed by the publication of ‘Town and Country Parks’ by the Select Committee for the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs. The Committee pointed rightly to the woeful neglect of too many of our fine historic parks and a lack of investment in new ones. They call for a raft of measures to improve the situation but also specifically praised the Green Flag Park Awards scheme as an excellent initiative and one that should be developed and extended further as part of a wider Renaissance programme for parks. We could have asked for no better endorsement.
    Thirdly, because the Civic Trust believes that the Green Flags scheme is capable of considerable further development. In this transition year we will be consolidating the position and developments will therefore be necessarily modest. We are already planning for future years as follows:

• To develop the Awards as an excellent mechanism for benchmarking and quality assurance for all park and greenspace activities by local authorities. Best value is of course a key local authority driver and the Green Flag Award scheme can provide one of the tools for the job. 
• To make it clear the Awards scheme is intended to relate to all green space with public access, not merely parks. This has always been an intention of the scheme, but not yet widely recognised. There is considerable potential here to draw in a raft of new entries.
• To encourage wider community engagement in the Green Flags programme and look at the possibility of special awards for small projects and for community driven initiatives.
• To extend the programme to the whole of the United Kingdom.

The detailed arrangements for this new programme are still a matter for further discussions in the steering group, and inevitably it will take several years to develop the full range. I hope nevertheless this brief commentary gives an illustration of why the Civic Trust is now so excited to be a part of the Green Flag team.

Michael Gwilliam is Director of the Civic Trust, 17 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AW, UK, pride@civictrust.org.uk

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 46, December 1999, page 15]