Nottingham lands share of £11m to safeguard parks and open spaces

Nottingham has been landed a share of £11m to safeguard the future of the city’s parks and open spaces.

The National Trust has teamed up with The National Lottery Heritage Fund to launch ‘Future Parks’ and eight areas around the country have now been chosen to take part in the pioneering scheme.

Each had to submit plans for how they would use the funding and judges were impressed with the “ambition and creativity” of Nottingham’s bid. More than 80 applications were put forward before the winning bids were announced.

The £11m will be broken down into £6m of lottery and Government funding, and a further £5m worth of advice and support from some of the country’s leading experts in conservation, fund-raising, volunteering and green-space management from the National Trust.

Around 25% of land in Nottingham is green space and there has been £40m of investment in parks over the past decade. The city has 64 Green Flags recognising well-managed parks – the most outside London.

Councillor Dave Trimble, Portfolio Holder for Leisure and Culture at Nottingham City Council, said: “We’re delighted to have been chosen as one of the successful bids for this funding, which will make a huge difference to Nottingham.

“A quarter of the city is green space and we are incredibly lucky to be able to enjoy that parkland all year round. The purpose of this project is to sustain and improve our parks but, most importantly, to future-proof them for future generations.

“We have some exciting ideas which we put forward in our bid, including opportunities to address issues around health and wellbeing, increasing volunteering and training for communities to get more involved with local parks, and developing charitable-giving schemes to generate more funding.”

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