5 - How do we work with the landowner to help take care of our local greenspace?

Park Management Plans - What's already happening or planned?

Contact your local Council to find out if there is Park Management Plan for your local park or greenspace. This may set our improvement plans for the park and ways that you can get involved. You could work with your local Council to help develop a Park Management Plan.

Establish a constituted community group, a Residents Association or a "Friends of" Group

Your local Third Sector Interface will give advice and support on setting up a community group.
If your greenspace is a local Council park, consider joining an existing Friends Group, or if there isn't one, consider starting a new Friends group - see for example Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Perth & Kinross
Parks Community UK has examples and ideas for setting up a Park Friends Group.

It's Your Neighbourhood & Beautiful Scotland

It's Your Neighbourhood is a non-competitive way to get helpful ideas, feedback and inspiration to start involving your community in beautifying and cleaning up your area.

Beautiful Scotland is the next step up, being competitive, with winners going forward to Britain in Bloom. Both It's Your Neighbourhood and Beautiful Scotland encourage horticulture, environmental responsibility and community participation. They are run by the Royal Horticultural Society  and organised in Scotland by Keep Scotland Beautiful 

Participation Requests

Community Empowerment Legislation allows for community controlled bodies to have influence over the services they receive from public bodies (e.g. Local Authorities, Health Boards etc). A Participation Request is a tool that enables a community group or body to request to be part of decision-making processes that seek to make improvements to public services. They have not been widely used; discussions, compromise and agreement with the public body landowner should always be the starting point. A Guide is available here  

Online Resources & Enquiries Services

• Social Farms & Gardens Scotland provide information, advice and support for community gardens
• Trellis provide Know-How and support for Therapetic Gardening
• Scottish Allotments & Gardens Society is the place to go for Allotment Groups and individual plotholders 

These organisations can also direct you towards other community groups with similar interests or projects to yours.  

Scottish Land Commission

Established as a result of Land Reform legislation, one of the Commission's roles is to promote and support change and good practice in the way land is owned and used in Scotland. They publish an ongoing set of Protocols including

• Community Engagement in Decisions Relating to land
• Transparency of Ownership and Land Use Decision-Making
• Land Ownership by Charities
• Land Ownership by Private Trusts 
• Diversification of Ownership and Tenure
• Negotiating Transfer of land to Communities

All of which aim to give practical advice to land owners, land managers and to communities in the fair and sustainable use of land, as set out in the Scottish Government's Land Rights and Responsibilities Statement. There are case studies of good practice on the website, and their Good Practice Team that can be contacted for advice and practical support.  

Managing Scotland's parks and greenspaces during Covid-19

This document (August 2020) brings together the latest guidance from Scottish Government, with advice from Public Health Scotland, sportscotland, Visit Scotland and a range of other organisations to help local authorities and other greenspace managers manage parks, gardens and greenspaces safely during the coronavirus pandemic.

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