National to local disconnects in greenspace policy

There is strong evidence that access to high quality greenspace has benefits for human health and well-being, especially for disadvantaged and marginalised communities. These arise from opportunities for recreation and interaction with nature, as well as reduction in climate change risks through flood protection and urban cooling. At the same time, spending time in nature can encourage pro-environmental behaviour, forming a virtuous circle for human health and nature recovery. However, disadvantaged communities typically have less access to greenspace. This inequity risks becoming further entrenched through changes in national and local government planning policy, including the forthcoming Planning and Infrastructure Bill and a shift from two-tier to unitary local authorities and eventually to regional Strategic Mayoral Authorities, which could reduce local community input into planning decisions and result in loss of local greenspace. This interdisciplinary project will therefore tackle an urgent need to explore potential synergies between health, nature and social equity that may be blocked by current and future spatial and conceptual disconnects in national and local government policies and strategies, using the county of Oxfordshire as a case study.

The project has been co-designed with our partners from Oxfordshire County Council, Oxfordshire Local Nature Partnership and Natural England to ensure policy-relevance and impact, and is supported by a wider stakeholder group. We will identify existing policies and strategies relevant to green infrastructure, health and equity, and then use documentary analysis to explore “gaps and overlaps” between these policies and strategies and identify opportunities and challenges related to incoming policy and legislation. We will use institutional mapping to explore power relationships in greenspace policy and strategy and identify best practice for equitably delivering community benefits. Outputs will include an action research paper, a plain English report for stakeholders, and a policy brief for national government, all detailing our findings on national-local policy disconnects, and co-produced recommendations on how to maximise synergies between health, nature, climate resilience and equity while minimising trade-offs.