Cardiff's Bute Par k has been named one of the most valuable recreation sites in the UK. The figures came in a new study of the nation's green spaces which has found that, in total, they are worth £25.6bn in “welfare value” a year.
The capital's park is said to be worth £7,258,230. The most valuable site in the UK is Hyde Park in London, which is worth £24,101,440. The research, funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has created an outdoor recreation valuation tool (Orval) which assesses the value provided by each park, wood, riverside walk, country path and beach across England and Wales.
It also identifies which residents enjoy the benefits of each green space and when they do so. Bute Park is a Green Flag site and a CADW Grade 1 listed park and is 130 acres - the equivalent to 75 football pitches. That makes it one of the largest urban parks in Wales. It comprises a broad mix of historic landscape, urban woodland, sports pitches, arboretum, horticultural features, and has the River Taff running through. You can get more environment news and other story updates by subscribing to our newsletters here.
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Researchers ranked each park in terms of value for money and wellbeing and the study found that small parks delivered the highest recreational value, and that three key drivers to increased outdoor recreation were the weather, good access to quality green spaces and dog ownership.
They also found the top 10 most valuable recreation sites, which were all in or around urban areas. Hyde Park in London, Sutton Park in Birmingham and Blaise Castle estate in Bristol are the top three. Bute Park was ninth on the list. You can read more stories about Cardiff here.
Brett Day, a professor of environmental economics at the University of Exeter and one of the authors of the research, said: “The great contribution of this study is that it puts a figure to the value of our green spaces: £25.6bn a year. The size of that benefit stands in stark contrast to the deep cuts in green space budgets across UK councils, cuts that threaten to condemn our green spaces to neglect and disrepair.
“The Orval tool makes explicit the very real, but all-too-often-ignored, losses that people endure as a consequence. Recreational access is not the same for all people, not just because of where they live but because of things like access to a car. Orval can show decision-makers how to locate new facilities in a way that will provide the most benefit to more disadvantaged groups and give them better access to the environment.”
The report also found that dog owners were four times more likely to use recreation spaces, but people from ethnic minority backgrounds and in less affluent socioeconomic groups were less likely to engage in outdoor recreation, even when given the same opportunities.
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