Bleasby Green Spaces Matter Plan
Background
The Parish of Bleasby is blessed with a number of beautiful greenspaces which provide accessible areas for residents and visitors to relax and enjoy. These areas also provide important habitats for wildlife, wildflowers, hedgerows and native trees.
Bleasby Parish Council (BPC) own many of the greenspaces and are committed to their preservation and enhancement. BPC recognise the potential these spaces provide for educational development, mental wellbeing and healthy activities so would like to encourage more community engagement.
Although the areas are presently cared for by a mix of volunteers, contractors and district council services, there is no official community agreement or BPC approved sustainable plan in place to define the required maintenance, review progress, develop and approve improvements and allocate resources.
The intention of this document is to provide BPC and the community with a sustainable plan (The Plan) to manage these greenspaces, not only in their present form, but to enhance and develop them for a sustainable future.
Process for setting out The Plan
In January 2021 BPC set up Bleasby Green Spaces Management Group (BGSMG) to make an initial assessment and recommendations on the various practices, tasks and opportunities associated with managing and enhancing the greenspaces.
Careful consideration was given to the potential for maintaining, improving and protecting each area in a way that encourages visitors, develops and connects wildlife habitats and helps ensure each area meets with the needs of local residents.
In order to ensure a fair and consistent means of developing best practice over time, advice was solicited from professional agencies such as Notts Wildlife Trust. In particular, reference was and will be made to Public Health England publication “Improving access to greenspace – A new review for 2020”
On approval from BPC in July 2022, The Plan has been published in the local community and can serve as a rolling public-terms-of-reference. Apart from providing parish residents with visibility, it will also stimulate feedback and contribution to help evolve and improve The Plan to meet future needs.
The Plan is set out in five sections - see below for pdf on each section:
- Ongoing tasks and maintenance
- essential maintenance tasks to maintain each area to a consistent standard
- Resources and budget requirements
- template for annual budget review
- Maintenance Development Projects (MDP)
- maintenance based projects to help develop and improve BPC owned greenspaces
- Nature Recovery Projects
- projects considered to be independent of BPC maintenance and aimed at recovering nature within the parish and local communities
- Community Engagement
- ideas to help increase community engagement and responsibility for Bleasby GreenSpace