Green spaces, red budgets: a legal right to nature would help capture their real value

Mid-summer is one of those very rare moments where Londoners and workers and residents of other British cities and large towns can think of only one thing at lunchtime and after work: where is there a park when I can sit down and eat lunch or just absorb the sunlight? Being able to get some time in the open space and, hopefully, feel some breeze and find some shade in the open air is of high value.

Public parks enhance the quality of cities by offering free social spaces and bringing elements of nature to city dwellers. The trees in the parks contribute to cooling and cleaning the air while supporting local wildlife. During the Covid-19 lockdowns, parks became even more crucial as they remained accessible when other gathering spots and travel options were restricted. The question remains whether these cherished community resources can be assigned a monetary worth. Most people consider parks important for their quality of life. In fact, UN Sustainable Development Goal 11 “Sustainable Cities and Communities” includes the aim of providing “universal access to safe, inclusive, and accessible green and public spaces”.

Economists talk about “willingness to accept” (WTA) or the smallest amount that someone will want to be paid to give up the right to a service. One study using WTA, by Cambridge university’s Bennett Institute of Public Policy,  looked at parks during the Covid-19 lockdowns and found that people in London would, on average, want to be paid more than £3,600 a year not to use a park. Given that more than nine out of 10 Londoners were using a park at the time — there was precious little else to do — that figure might be a little inflated.

Another way of looking at the intangible gain for park users is to look at how living near a park feeds into property prices (especially valuable for people without their own gardens or balconies). Research in the US has suggests a 20% premium on prices of properties abutting a park while a study in China finds that every percentage point increase in the distance from the home to the park took 0.02% off the price. Another benefit is a reduction in health costs as more time in the open air leaves people fitter and healthier and thus reduces their likelihood of suffering an illness. One study for the US city of Seattle put combined health savings due to park use at US$64.1 million in 2010 values.

Boston Public Gardens. Photo by Josephine Baran on Unsplash

But, of course, while people may value access to parks or relish house prices appreciation, that is not the same as providing money to the owners (usually cash-strapped local councils) who look after them. Local authorities have had their budgets slashed since the 2010 austerity programme: over the 14 years to 2024 core funding has fallen around 8 per cent in real terms, according to the IFS thinktank.

Drill down deeper and some admittedly out-of-date calculations by London Councils showed that borough expenditure on public green spaces had declined by 18% over the four years to 2014 in real terms, including a significant drop of over 10% in just the 2014/15 financial year alone. By 2022, councils across England had reduced their annual spending on parks and public green spaces by nearly £330 million when adjusted for inflation compared to ten years earlier, with the poorest communities facing the most severe budget reductions.

Value for money

Parks cost money to maintain (usually funded by payments by taxpayers who do not all use the spaces) but on the other hand they deliver benefits to users and to society that likely outweigh those costs. One study found that while Sheffield’s parks sit as a £16 million liability on the city’s balance sheet, the value they provide amounts to £1.2 billion. In other words, for each pound of taxpayer funding invested, society gains £34 worth of value in return. At this point, readers might be asking “So how do we turn that value into real money for upkeep of the parks?” Few would want admission charges to be imposed and hopefully the UK’s decision to end charges for general access to public museums and art galleries will be seen as an example of a mistaken policy.

One option would be to take parks out of local authorities’ financial accounts so the budget for spending does not have to compete with other, perhaps more politically urgent, needs — perhaps by putting them into some form of trust. A few years ago, the government set up a pilot programme with the National Trust, the Future Parks Accelerator, with the National Lottery putting in £14 million. An evaluation by Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR) at Sheffield Hallam University found £43 million of extra investment.

The former Green MP Caroline Lucas won a parliamentary debate three years ago on the question of putting a right to nature into law that would have created a “duty” by public authorities when exercising their functions under levelling-up legislation to have special regard to that right. It was not put to a vote but hopefully laid down the intellectual basis for future measures that will guarantee respect and funding for this asset that brings so many benefits to so many people.