A nature-based charity is urging businesses from Bristol and Bath to step forward and help it raise vital funds for the cities’ vital parks and green spaces.
The appeal by Your Park Bristol & Bath follows the release last month of figures showing a third of the population in Bristol and Bath struggle to access their local park. 
The charity’s year-long Reimagining Parks campaign aims to tackle the barriers highlighted in the research.
It has an initial £30,000 fundraising target by October to kickstart the work needed. This will be followed by a much bigger ambition that, by the end of the 12 months, will be making significant impact across the 580 or so parks and green spaces across the two cities.
As part of this it hopes to raise £10,000 through a 100km challenge, with 20 businesses pledging to get their walking boots and commit to raising a minimum of £500 each.
The challenge involves the business’s employees walking or running 100km during the month of September – or covering the distance any other creative way they choose – with the added benefit of encouraging staff outdoors and into their local parks and green spaces. 
Your Park Bristol & Bath chief executive Charlee Bennett, pictured, said: “Our Reimagining Parks campaign is off to a great start, with lots of support from the local media and some generous donations and encouragement from our loyal supporter base.
“But to hit our 12-month ambition and ensure everyone in our region is able to benefit from the nature on their doorstep, we really need local businesses and organisations to get behind us.”
The charity says most parks and green spaces across Bristol and Bath are not inclusively designed, which significantly impacts access to them – in particular, for disabled people and carers, women and girls, minority ethnic groups and people in low-income areas.
It highlights the three key factors preventing people from having the confidence or ability to get out into their local parks as physical accessibility, personal safety and mental wellbeing.
Your Park said at the core of it Reimagining Parks campaign was the “huge ambition” for everyone in Bristol and Bath to have a park that is accessible to them within a 10-minute reach of where they live, work or study.
That means making them physically accessible for disabled people and their carers and designed with the safety and enjoyment of women and girls in mind, while also being used to support people with mental health issues.
Charlee added: “Parks are nature-rich, free-to-use community assets that are good for everyone’s mental and physical health.
“But they have historically been designed through a very narrow lens. That means there are literally hundreds of thousands of people in our two cities who feel unable to make the most of their local green spaces.
“It’s actually not difficult to make parks more accessible – it involves simple measures like creating wheelchair-friendly access, having accessible toilets, clear sight lines for safety and introducing inclusive activities such as sensory walks and wellbeing activities.
“Unfortunately, many of these measures are not possible within the shrinking budgets that local authorities have available to them.”
She said the campaign was not just changing landscapes, it aims to foster inclusivity, safety and wellbeing.
“It’s a huge campaign for a small charity like ours to take on, but through our work with local communities over the last five years, we are absolutely clear on what needs to be done and we are determined to start delivering the changes now,” she added.
Your Park Bristol & Bath’s initial plan is to create one exemplar park each in Bristol and Bath – Hartcliffe Millennium Green and Brickfields Park – to show what a fully accessible and safe park looks like.
It also wants to expand its Roots to Wellbeing GP-referred social prescribing programme providing weekly sessions in local parks for people with mental health issues to reach 300 more individuals.
For more information about the Reimagining Parks campaign, visit https://yourpark.org.uk/reimagining-park
Pictured below: Your Park chief executive Charlee Bennet, far left, at the Reimagining Parks campaign launch in Hartcliffe Millennium Green, with mental health lead Sara Laking, social prescriber Ruth Bartlett and volunteers and supporters. Image by Beata Cosgrove Photography
