Brent Council has confirmed in a response to Cllr Lorber that Brent Council currently has no Green Flag awards. This confirms my statement on Twitter (above) refuting claims by Cllr Nerva (Queen's Park) during the Council meeting on February 27th, apparently after some frantic googling, that Brent had won Green Flag awards for Gladstone Park and Roundwood Park. His intervention came before his prepared speech. He said:
I'd just like to pick up on a point made about parks in Brent. I've just looked up, Gladstone Park: Green Flag, Roundwood Park: Green Flag. There are lots pf other places in Brent that provide really great recreation and wellbeing. I think it is really sad to hear someone denigrate the really hard working Brent Parks Service.
It's 'really sad' that a member of Brent Cabinet does not know that Brent Council opted out of the Green Flags Award scheme back in 2014 when parks maintenance was outsourced to Veolia. LINK
The Award was always a great incentive across London and is international in its scope. The map below shows the Brent desert with just Roe Green Walled Garden and Queens Park marked. The Walled Carden is looked after by the Barn Hill Conservation Group rather than Brent Council/Continental Landscapes (the new contractor) and Queens Park by the City of London Corporation.
Indeed there is some hope as Continental Landscapes features in the 2024 Green Flag Awards list for work in some other London boroughs and applications have been made for King Edward VII Park and Bramshill Open Space.
It is to be hoped that Brent Council will listen to residents who truly value their parks, including supporters of Barham Park who were recently refused a hearing, and renew their commitment through participation in the Green Glag Award scheme.
Back in 2011 I celebrated Fryent Country Park's Green Flag Award with congratulations to Brent Council and a video showing the park throuh the seasons.
A rather tattered green flag remained in the Fryent Way car park for some time after the Council withdrew from the Award.
6 comments:
Anyone who walks in Gladstone park will tell you it hasn't got a flag. You take your life in your hands as Viola use it 100 times a day with their vehicles. Dominoes pizza 50 times a day with their mopeds. Irwins fair have destroyed the cricket wicket and the playground is something from the 1970s. Add the dog attacks, two bodies found and countless assaults and it's little wonder. What's pitiful is that Brent's Cabinet and local Cllrs care not a jot.
Lets face it; it is obvious that Cllr Nerva hardly understands his own Cabinet brief, so why should we expect him to know about Brent's parks? The guy is an absolute liability, as are several others on the Cabinet and of course on the Labour back benches.
The playgrounds are dumps too
Nerva doesn’t live in the real world
Barham Park used to have a Green Flag many years ago and some of us keep on pressing the Council to improve the maintenance of the Park. Friends of Barham Library helped to raise money for improvements to the Pond (although it is not looked after properly at present) and the upgrading of the Queen Elizabeth II garden (more planting still needs to be done) and we keep an eye on the Park and try to engage with the Council as the Trustee of the Barham Charity.
This is the Criteria for Green Flags.
"Criteria
A successful Green Flag Award site demonstrates
through a sound management plan and a well
run site that the management understand:
+ their users – who they are, who they could be,
what they want, how they are informed and
involved
+ their site – what is special about its history,
biodiversity, landscape, social and physical
setting, and what it is trying to achieve
+ their management strategy – that what is
there is safe, in line with legislation and policy,
well maintained and that there are plans for the
future"
Barham will sadly never get a Green Flag under the current Leadership of Brent Council as there is no engagement with the public who are denied the right to speak at the Barham Park Trust Meetings.
Those of us who care about Barham Park (and others across our area) do not intend to give up. Our Parks deserve better and it is up to all of us to Fight for them.
Didn't Brent Council get around £630K from the sale of the two ex park keepers cottages??? What exactly have they wasted that money on??? There have certainly been no visible improvements to the park!!!
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