I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity through my lecturer (Dr Janet Jackson) to assist her in Northamptonshire's first ever Greenspace Forum. The forum is being established to allow communities, organisations and charities with similar interests and plans regarding greenspaces to come together to share, engage and assist each other. The attending parties including 'friends of' groups, The Wildlife Trust, River Nene Regional Park, Groundwork as well as borough and county council represtantives met at The University of Northampton on the 18th November. The groups were asked to think around four main questions...
- What is working well?
- What goals do you have?
- What challenges do you face?
- What measures/tools/skills do you need to move forward?
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| The School of Science & Technology at The University of Northampton |
The wide range of answers reflected the great variety of groups that were in attendance, it was interesting to see that although on paper these groups shared vast amounts of common goals and aspirations for their own greenspaces, actually there were a few conflicts between the groups as to how these goals could/should be achieved.
To briefly summarise only a fraction of the findings... The more urban based groups seemed to find anti-social behaviour and littering to be their main obstacle in achieving their goals whereas rural based groups struggled to find enough volunteers especially those of a younger more physically-able age to assist in the maintenance and running of the groups. However working together under the greenspaces forum, other groups who are in a similar situation or have managed to overcome those obstacles were able to advise, as well as having representatives from major organisations such as The Wildlife Trust or Groundwork to give their professional opinions.
If you're interested in finding out more about The Northamptonshire Greenspaces Forum or want to join up with your 'friends of' group (its never too late!), check out the useful link section below!
The forum was a great success in my opinion and I'm interested to see how this new group of likeminded individuals, community groups and organisations progresses.
MJT
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