London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

Green spaces are not accessible for 2.8m people in UK, finds study

Green spaces are not accessible for 2.8m people in UK, finds study

Fields in Trust charity finds about one in 24 people in Britain live 10 minutes walk from nearest park
Nearly 2.8 million people in the UK live more than 10 minutes walk from a public park, garden or playing field, according to research.

Fields in Trust, which protects and campaigns for public green spaces, found just four out of the 11 regions in Great Britain met its “six-acre standard” for green space provision.

Three-quarters of local authorities had adopted the charity recommendations, or equivalent guidance, in 2014. But according to research published on Wednesday, only Scotland, Wales, and the south-east and east of England met it.

Yet none of these regions were in the top five for accessibility of green space. Overall, 2,779,065 people in Britain, about one in 24 people, lived more than 10 minutes from the nearest park. The worst region for accessibility to green space was Wales, where one in 13 people lived more than 10 minutes from a park or public garden.

The findings come from Fields in Trust’s green spaces index, published every year since 2019. The charity’s guidance for outdoor sport and play, first published in the 1930s, recommends a minimum of 6 acres (2.4 hectares) of accessible green space – such as parks, public gardens, nature reserves and playing fields – per 1,000 people.

A spokesperson for the charity said it only published data for broad regions to avoid setting up a “league table” that would unfairly single out certain areas. But cross-referencing findings with those areas prioritised for the government’s levelling up agenda showed they had on average 10% less green space than the standard, the charity said.

The index exposed large disparities between regions. People in Scotland, the best-served part of Britain, had 41 sq metres of public green space per person, more than double the 19 sq metres available to Londoners.

However, even those living in regions with more green space could find those areas comparatively more inaccessible. The figures showed about one in 17 people in Scotland lived more than 10 minutes walk from their nearest green space, compared to almost as few as one in 1,000 in London.

There were no publicly available maps or datasets of green space in Northern Ireland.

The Labour MP Clive Betts, the chair of the levelling up, housing and communities scrutiny committee, described the findings as timely. “I think, particularly during the lockdown, the importance of green space and accessible green space near to people’s homes was highlighted as never before,” Betts said.

The government ought to encourage local authorities to engage with Fields in Trust, which buys up green spaces to hold them in trust for the people in perpetuity, Betts said.

“And the government probably ought to think about the issue of funding for open space in general,” he added. “We did a report as a select committee on parks and open spaces about five years ago now. I think we are going to have to revisit that as a committee at some point, because there were generally lots of good words issued after it [but] probably not a lot of progress made since.”
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×