Visits to Parks on the Rise as City Dwellers Head Outdoors

Increasing numbers of people living in cities and towns across England are visiting the natural environment. Visits to city parks and green spaces in England were up by 25% in 2016 as compared to 2010, new research published by Natural England has revealed.
Natural England’s Urban Greenspaces report also found that more people are visiting the natural environment within towns and cities across England than ever before with an estimated 879 million visits to parks in towns and cities in 2015/16.
Data from March 2009 to February 2016 was analysed, and showed:

• Urban greenspaces are increasingly utilised with an estimated 1.46 billion visits in 2015/16 compared with 1.16 billion visits in 2009/10
• 93% of the urban population claimed to have taken visits to the natural environment for recreation in the last 12 months
• There has been a decrease in the use of cars and vans to reach urban greenspaces between 2010 and 2016 with around seven in ten visits taken on foot in 2015
• Public parks, recreation grounds and other greenspaces were the most common places visited within towns and cities (47%, 9% and 14% of all visits respectively), but people also reported visiting urban woodlands (5%), rivers and canals (7%)
• For some urban residents visits to the natural environment may be the only opportunity to exercise.

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Posted on 12th July 2018