How we’re helping reimagine parks

Boosting the benefits of access to parks is the aim of a new partnership we’ve launched with the charity Your Park Bristol & Bath (YPBB).

We’ll be supporting their ambitious Reimagining Parks campaign to provide inclusive and accessible green spaces for people in the two cities.

Alongside funding YPBB’s work, National Grid teams will be helping them transform parks during volunteering days, the first of which took place recently.

The team days provide a chance for colleagues to connect outdoors and improve their mental health while taking part in a range of nature-based activities, such as planting trees, building pathways and benches to improve accessibility, enhance biodiversity and carbon capture.

Emily Green, National Grid Electricity Distribution’s volunteering & sponsorship coordinator, said: “The benefits Your Park Bristol & Bath delivers to people’s health through access to nature, as well as boosting biodiversity, are impressive and their mission closely matches National Grid’s priorities.

“Through this partnership we will be able to support this valuable work in several ways. This includes employees taking part in team days doing practical activities to improve parks, and in the process their own wellbeing. We look forward to seeing the continued progress YPBB is having on communities.”

Charlee Bennett, chief executive of YPBB, said: “We’re delighted that National Grid Electricity Distribution has come on board as a key partner. This is a real testament to the importance of the work we are aiming to deliver.

“With this support, both financial and hands-on, we can accelerate our efforts to create truly inclusive and accessible green spaces for everyone in Bristol and Bath to benefit from.

“We hope that many other local organisations will follow suit and join our campaign. The more help and support we have, the more impact we can make.”

YPBB’s Reimagining Parks campaign was launched in May and aims to reimagine the two cities’ parks and green spaces to tackle the barriers that it believes prevents around a third of the local population from being able to access and fully enjoy them.

YPBB says the majority of the approximately 580 parks and green spaces across the two cities are not inclusively designed, which significantly impacts access to them – in particular, for disabled people and carers, women and girls, minority ethnic groups, and people in low-income areas. According to the charity, the three key factors preventing people from having the confidence or ability to get out into their local parks are physical accessibility, personal safety and mental wellbeing.

Their campaign aims to lead the change, with the ambition for everyone in Bristol and Bath to have a park that is accessible to them within 10-minutes of where they live, work or study.