Worth Park in Crawley, Surrey, has secured the Heritage and Conservation Award, with runners-up Kennington Park’s Flower Garden and Felixstowe Seafront Gardens also National Lottery funded. 

Welcoming the news, HLF Head of Landscape and Natural Heritage, Drew Bennellick, said: “Congratulations to the team at Worth Park. This prestigious award recognises their hard work, dedication and professional delivery of this exemplar project, made possible thanks to National Lottery players.

“Parks are facing challenging times and it’s important that everyone works together to share good practice and great exemplar projects such as these to help secure the future of all our parks and green places.”

Notes to editors

Landscape Institute Awards

The Landscape Intitute (LI) Awards are presented to landscape professionals in recognition of their outstanding work, and to encourage excellence. Every year, the LI applauds those working on the most innovative projects to have shaped, restored and protected the natural and built environment.

The winners:

• Worth Park -  Crawley Borough Council, total grant awarded: £2,659,000
• Restoration of Kennington Park’s Flower Garden (highly commended) - London Borough of Lambeth, total grant awarded: £395,700
• Felixstowe Seafront Gardens (highly commended) - Suffolk Coastal District Council, total grant awarded: £2,346,400

State of the UK Parks

In September 2016, HLF published State of UK Public Parks 2016, a follow-up to its 2014 report.

This second report revealed there is a growing deficit between the rising use of parks and the declining resources that are available to manage them. Without urgent action the continuing downward trend in the condition of many of our most treasured parks and green spaces is set to continue. 

While new ways of working and generating income are showing potential, more support, shared learning and collaboration is needed to support those that manage public parks. Therefore, this research calls for collaborative action to deliver new ways of funding and managing public parks to avert a crisis.

CLG Select Committee – Public parks inquiry

In October, HLF’s Drew Bennellick gave oral evidence to the Communities and Local Government Select Committee Inquiry in to the future of public parks.