A bright green future for our parks

Burnley Council’s parks team has been nominated for the best service team of the year (parks, grounds and horticultural service) in the APSE Service Awards 2017.

The council’s innovative approach to managing Burnley’s parks and open areas caught the judges’ eyes.

Coun. John Harbour, the council’s Executive member responsible for parks, said: “People love our parks. They attract thousands of visitors, of all ages, every week and we’re very proud of them.

“We need to make sure we look after our parks, not just for our generation but for generations to come, and that means we have to be more imaginative in the way we properly manage them.

“Being nominated reflects the hard work and dedication of our volunteers, parks staff and partners in making Burnley’s parks so popular.”

Burnley Council manages 550 hectares of green spaces with an ever decreasing budget.

The Rethinking Burnley’s Parks project takes an environmentally-friendly approach to managing the parks and green spaces. The aim is to work with nature rather than trying to control it.

By doing so the council is encouraging biodiversity and a more environmentally-friendly approach.

The winners will be announced at a ceremony in Oxford on September 7th.

Working closely with Offshoots permaculture project (managed by Newground), park Friends groups, and greenspaces staff, the council developed and delivered in four areas of innovation:

A volunteer programme; extending meadow management; replacing annual bedding schemes with herbaceous perennial planting; managing areas of park woodlands.