Green Spaces in Leicester and Leicestershire

Green spaces are a vital part of a vibrant and healthy community. The Leicestershire Together Priority Outcome Framework and the One Leicester Partnership Sustainable Community Strategy recognise the value that Green Spaces can have on the lives of people in the County and the City respectively and the value communities place upon them.

Following its election in 2010 the Coalition Government declared its intention to give local communities the power to designate green spaces valued by local people. The nine local authorities across Leicester and Leicestershire agreed to work together to support communities in applying the new designation. The fruit of this collaboration forms the first part of this document which takes the form of a toolkit which will support local communities and councils wishing to identify and protect valued green spaces through local and neighbourhood plans in line with the Government’s proposed new designation.

For many years these councils have worked together with other partners to identify, maintain and enhance green spaces of value. As a result there already exists a robust set of policies and designations to protect different types of green space. These are collated in the second part of the document which brings together in one place the evidence, approaches, designations and policies that relate to green spaces in the sub-region. It includes information about protective designations already in place and is designed to raise awareness amongst local communities of the existence, purpose and implications of these.

This document is designed to support local communities and councils in making decisions about the future protection and use of existing green spaces. It does this by providing advice and support to those wishing to designate green spaces valued by local communities; and by bringing together into one document key policies and designations that exist. More localised policies will also be put in place by individual local planning authorities through their plans and guidance, details of which can be found through their websites (see Appendix 1 of the document):

View the Green Spaces in Leicester and Leicestershire Local Green Spaces Toolkit and Existing Policy Context document (PDF Format)

This Green Spaces Toolkit builds on earlier Green Spaces work carried out by Leicestershire County Council in 2011.  Early in 2011, the county council asked the public to say which local green spaces they particularly valued and why. This was in response to Government proposals to create a new designation, to protect green areas of particular importance to local communities.

Areas were identified by communities using an online interactive map-based application and at special sessions run at the 27 Community Forums.

Over 2,000 people selected more than 3,000 areas. The highest responses covered areas proposed for housing, such as Whitwick Green, Outwoods, Lubbesthorpe and Brookfield Farm.

The most common land categories people wanted to protect were country parks and woodland; community green spaces, such as village greens; playing fields; open countryside; derelict land; and private land, such as golf courses.

The council launched the idea because the Government’s localism policy aims to give local communities a greater say on planning decisions affecting their areas. Ministers are also proposing to create a new “valued green spaces” designation. Understanding which green spaces local people particularly value will help local communities and councils decide where new homes and other developments needed by local communities are best located.

The information gained up to the closing date of 15th April 2011 has been used to produce:

A key aim of the green spaces consultation was to give the data back to local people to enable them to use the findings themselves, including to produce neighbourhood plans.

The interactive online analysis tool allows communities to view all the green spaces identified from the original online consultation and the responses from the 27 Community Form meetings, including the comments and questionnaire information.

The interactive online analysis tool allows users to interrogate the data in a number of ways, including:

The results will:

The formal consultation period ended 15^th April 2011, However, it is still possible to submit your views.

Although the information provided will be too late to be incorporated into the main analysis, we will continue to monitor the web-site and use the information as appropriate.

There are two ways to make your views known:

This consultation covers the County area of Leicestershire only; you will be able to identify areas that cross the County / City boundary, but not areas completely within the City.

For any further information please email greenspaces@leics.gov.uk