CRAP PARKS

There is a rumour afoot, peddled by politicians and policy makers, that things are getting better in the world of parks and open spaces. While there may be more money for the design and construction of new urban green spaces there is simply not enough to maintain parks to a decent standard. We constantly travel the length and breadth of the UK visiting parks of all kinds and sizes and spend a lot of time chatting to the poor souls who have to manage them without sufficient resources. As far as we can see, apart from the parks and open spaces that have benefited from substantial external funding, the outlook is as dismal as ever, with most public open space continuing to decline.

Our sustained campaign for an honest debate on the state of our parks nationally has fallen on deaf ears which want to hear only the good news stories. So in our determination to draw attention to the elephant in the room we have set up this CRAP PARKS page for your edification and to provoke that honest debate. If you have pictures of crap parks please send them to us with a caption and we’ll add them if we like them. At the moment we are not naming and shaming (we need some clients after all) – but we might in future as our impatience grows with this dire situation.

Crap parks pictures
A dead bench - the non-maintenance of a water body	A path beaten to death
Crap bench	Crap dog crap bin
Crappy galvanised fence	Crap place to put a sign
Distressed chicken	Horrible fence uglifies innocent house
Nature conserved or just rampant?	Security fence around leisure centre terrace adjacent to park - park users are seen as a security threat to the leisure centre
The world's shortest and most pointless cycle lane?	Shouldn't that read 'beware pedestrians', or get off your sodding bike when there are children about?
Trees everywhere, but no park	What's worse the burnt out bin or the un-removed traffic cones?
Where there was once a park pavilion	Who put that there and why?
You want me to play on what?	Dead springy thing
What fun!	Unwelcome to the park [1] [2] [3]