Parks For People

The Parks for People programme aims to regenerate public parks of national, regional or local heritage value for the enjoyment and recreation of local people. Monitoring and evaluation are important elements of the programme and the Heritage Lottery Fund commissioned Hall Aitken, supported by Community First Partnership, to provide support to projects to enable them to fulfil the monitoring and evaluation requirements of the programme.

The Parks for People programme began as a joint initiative between the Big Lottery Fund (BIG) and the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). BIG funding enabled HLF to support projects in England and HLF provided additional resources to support a small number of projects in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Full responsibility for all new applications passed to the Heritage Lottery from April 2009 and further Rounds have been announced for 2010.

The programme offers grants of between £250,000 and £5 million for projects which involve existing urban or rural green spaces designed for informal recreation and enjoyment, which are valued by local communities as part of their heritage. The parks must be freely accessible to members of the public, and actively involve local people in their running and activities.

Project must achieve all of the 5 programme outcomes:

• Outcome 1 – increasing and extending the range of audiences;
• Outcome 2 – conserving and improving the heritage value;
• Outcome 3 – increasing the range of volunteers involved;
• Outcome 4 – increasing knowledge and skills; and
• Outcome 5 – improving management and maintenance.