Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
and Amin, Shah and Ahmad's (2001) study of parks in Peshawar, Pakistan).
The largest single area of research on urban parks has focused on the accessibility
(Harrison 1983) and behavioural-type studies, exemplified by Burgess et al. (1988a,
1988b, 1988c) and those undertaken by Milton Keynes Development Corporation (1988,
1989). In addition, Gregory (1988) and Grahn (1991) examined the attitudes and
psychological constructs of different socioeconomic groups using parks and open spaces,
while Grocott (1990) considered the role of public participation in the design and creation
of community parks. There has also been a growing interest in the management issues
associated with urban parks, particularly the state of green space at a national level, as
discussed earlier in Chapter 3, as discussed by Reeves (2000), where budget cuts in green
space management have occurred since the early 1970s despite green space comprising
13.5 per cent of the developed land in England and Wales. One major development which
has altered the philosophy and delivery of leisure services in local authorities concerns
the management of services through a unified 'Leisure Services Department'. These
departments have created a new organisational structure for leisure service provision to
accommodate the additional administrative functions created by the Local Government
Act 1988. However, critics have argued that this organisational structure has contributed
to fragmentation and poor integration in service provision, owing to the increased
bureaucracy and centralised management of service provision by administrators rather
than practitioners, who had daily contact with clients.
Accompanying organisational changes in leisure service provision since 1988 is a new
ethos of service quality and quality assurance. This has permeated the delivery of public
services, a feature discussed in Chapter 3 with reference to the Walsall Metropolitan
Borough Council's inspection by the Audit Commission. Barber (1991) examined the
significance of management plans of parks and the role of local accountability,
identifying individual park managers as the most effective personnel to ensure that the
delivery of park-based services contributed to the quality of life in the local area, moving
away from the principle of space standard planning at a regional level, with greater
emphasis needed at the community level. However, being responsive to the local needs
has an economic cost and this may not always be compatible with the pursuit of
efficiency in service provision. G.Morgan (1991) acknowledged the growing importance
of consumer orientation in the planning and management process for parks and open
spaces, to ensure that community needs and desires were
adequately considered. The increased use of attitude surveys and monitoring of urban
park planning and management by local authorities is a direct response to the new ethos
pervading public service provision, a a feature evaluated by the Audit Commission in the
UK when examining leisure service provision. Yet research monitoring has a significant
resource implication at a time of public sector restrictions on local government
expenditure. The growing interest in urban park management is reflected in Welch's
(1991) survey which documents many of the issues facing local authorities in the 1990s
including park safety, CCT, park-related legislation, recreation management and risk
management which are still very real issues, as the case study of fear and leisure
provision in Chapter 2 confirmed. Against this background, attention now turns to
London in terms of open space provision and the London Borough of Newham as a
context in which to understand the role of spatial analysis.
