Fields in Trust President, HRH The Prince of Wales, hosted a roundtable yesterday afternoon at which industry leaders discussed how green spaces can help tackle key challenges facing communities now and in the future.
The Kensington Palace event brought together planners, designers, developers and house builders for a conversation focussing on how green spaces should be championing health and wellbeing, inclusion and diversity, climate change and nature recovery.
Yesterday's roundtable provided an opportunity for The Prince to listen to the current challenges and discuss our plans to transform the approach to delivering future green spaces through practical tools and guidance.
Our President was joined at the roundtable event by Adrian Brown from Berkeley Strategic Land Limited, Ian Anderson from ICENI Projects, Ian Houlston from LDA Design, Victoria Hills from the Royal Town Planning Institute, a representative from The Royal Foundation, Mark Skilbeck from Taylor Wimpey, and Dinah Bornat from ZCD Architects.
Fields in Trust have been pioneers in provision of green space guidance throughout our near 100-year history, having published our first open space standards in the 1930s. The “Six Acre Standard” came to be widely accepted and a derivation of the standard is adopted by around 75% of local authorities. Building on this legacy the initial discovery work with LDA Design will lead to the creation of more holistic guidance to support the industry to optimise the quality, functionality, and long-term sustainability of green spaces.
Following meaningful discussion all attendees agreed the time to act is now and they committed their expertise and experience to work with us to co-design the future guidance and encourage more industry leaders to get involved.
Following the event, Chair of Trustees at Fields in Trust, Jo Barnett, said: "For nearly a century we have used our voice to advocate for the provision of the right quantity of future-proofed green space in towns and cities, but we recognise that we need to go further. The Covid-19 pandemic reinforced the value of shared green space to community, health and wellbeing, and with increasing recognition of the role of these spaces in local climate action plans, now is the time to act.
"With the support of key players in the industry, we are delighted to have a real opportunity to create guidance that can inspire the green spaces of the future that will support both people and nature."
We are continuing to conduct multi-disciplinary stakeholder engagement to help shape the new guidance and would encourage those with an interest in green space planning and provision to get in touch to find out how you can get involved. Find out more about the new guidance and consultations.
You can find out more about our history of providing open space standards, including Stanley Baldwin's 1928 message in support of our work, in our interactive online archive.
You can also support our work by making a donation - your contribution will help ensure future generations will have high quality green spaces close to where they live which are inclusive, benefit the health and wellbeing of communities and support the natural world. Make a donation online.