Understanding Stakeholders’ Perceptions of Current and Future Park Management Practices

Today, there is increasing recognition of the importance of urban green space for our health and wellbeing. However, funding and budgets to manage urban parks are under threat in the UK and subject to significant reductions. These difficulties are being addressed through innovative practices which include community food growing, urban park plantings and income generation models, among others. Such practices reflect a shift in responsibility for park management involving multiple stakeholders who share responsibility. However, we know little about the perceptions of stakeholders, users and residents in relation to these different landscape management practices. How acceptable and feasible are such innovative practices in urban parks? What effect might their introduction have on users and their propensity to spend time in urban parks? The aim of this research is therefore to understand stakeholders’ perceptions of current and future park management practices by focusing on six urban parks in the city of Sheffield to explore their acceptability. This research explores different landscape management practices by examining stakeholders’ perceptions via semi-structured interviews (local authority stakeholders, Friends/ community groups, consultants and academics), focus group (park officers and managers) and household questionnaires (users and local residents). The sites are selected according to indicators of deprivation, urban park type and size, involvement of Friends of Parks groups or community groups, and geographical spread across the city. The findings suggest that socio-economic neighbourhood characteristics affect residents’ perceptions of acceptability and feasibility of park management practices. Funding pressures and a lack of workforce to manage parks are significant factors for community groups and professionals, among other factors. This research proposes that the place-keeping normative concept could be used to better understand park management contexts, allowing recommendations to be made for better park management in the city of Sheffield and the study sites. This research contributes valuable knowledge to our existing understanding of park management practices in an era of austerity. It is hoped that this will provide the foundation for further research focused on cities and urban parks in the future.