Whether they’re a place to relax and unwind, to play your favourite sport or walk the dog, parks are an essential part of everyone’s lives here in Haringey.
Our borough boasts some of the most beautiful and well-used parks in the country, highlighted recently by the Finsbury Park major events programme. Over two weekends, tens of thousands of people visited the park to enjoy performances from some of the biggest names in music, providing an important boost for local businesses and vital income to help us make improvements to the park.
We were also proud to host two community events as part of this year’s programme, giving young musicians and up-and-coming local artists a unique opportunity to play on a festival stage.
The excellent management of our parks and green spaces here in Haringey was also recognised last week with the news that Haringey has retained all 25 of its Green Flag awards for 2023, 22 of which were won by parks managed by the council.
These awards recognise and celebrate high quality green spaces, with assessors looking at everything that makes a park great, from welcoming entrances and good litter management to resident involvement and activity provision – exemplified here in Haringey by our active friends groups and our inclusive People Need Parks programme.
While we’re proud of this brilliant achievement, we know there is still more we can do to unlock the full potential of our parks to improve lives of residents across our diverse communities. That’s why we’ve recently launched our new parks and green spaces strategy, which sets out how we will make our parks fully inclusive and accessible, as well as meeting the challenges posed by the climate emergency and ensuring a top-quality service for park users.
We are already working to make this ambitious vision a reality, but as with everything we are doing as a council here in Haringey, we want to do this in partnership with residents.
There are so many ways you can get involved in improving your local park, from volunteering with The Conservation Volunteers or your local park’s friends group to responding to one of our consultations, including two that we’ve launched in the last week on improving accessibility to Parkland Walk and Finsbury Park.
I look forward to working together with residents to ensure that our parks continue to thrive and remain the vital green spaces that we all rely on.
- Cllr Emily Arkell is cabinet member for Culture, Communities and Leisure at Haringey Council.
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