In 2015 The Landscape Group (TLG) was commissioned to deliver the London Borough of Bromley’s parks and greenspace service. A Key Performance Indicator was to produce an overall strategy for the service with a number of supporting Annual Plans.
This document, which provides focus for a number of service-specific plans and strategies is entitled ‘A Parks, Greenspace and Countryside Strategy for the London Borough of Bromley’.
The Strategy is a working document to be embedded within the day-to-day management for the service. To be effective, the Strategy will provide a clear statement of our aspirations and provide a response to the ever-changing circumstances, pressures and opportunities we face.
We will undertake an annual review of the Strategy, focusing primarily on updating the Delivery Plan. We also recognise that the Strategy provides a new structure to guide ongoing work. While we believe that it will offer a robust and useful tool, we recognise that it is currently untested. Areas for improvement will become apparent once the Strategy has been adopted and tested against the actual needs of the Service.
For this reason we believe the initial annual review in 2016 will provide an opportunity to assess the first year performance of the Strategy, which may result in a more extensive revision than would normally be anticipated.
Monitoring progress is an important component of the review process. We have identified the need to integrate targets as a component part of the Delivery Plan, and this will form a core part of the 2016 review. Once the Delivery Plan is in place, monitoring the progress against targets will form an integrated part of our performance management systems.
We have summarised the key components of the strategy in Appendix 3.
- The Strategy is split into three distinct components – People (Strong inclusive and connected communities), Places (Attractive, biodiverse and sustainable parks, greenspace and countryside) and Resources (Quality services and value for money)
- The Strategy identifies 31 key projects as Strategic outcomes
- The document is further backed up by a separate publication the Action Plan – divided into quartiles and covering every area of TLGs responsibility – Parks, Countryside, Heritage, Environmental Education, Allotments, Sports, Play & Fitness and Cemeteries with 134 distinct projects that are time constrained and allocated to responsible teams/individuals to achieve
- Stakeholders in Bromley include 52 self-managed allotment sites, 23 Delegated sports clubs, 7 bowling clubs managed locally, 36 active friends of parks groups, The Countryside Consultative Panel, Bromley Friends Forum, Bowls Federation and Leisure Gardens and Allotments Consultative Panel, Bridleway groups, heritage groups, Friends of churchyards, volunteer services and relevant Elected Members
- 54 individuals, umbrella bodies or organisations, representing the stakeholder community responded to the draft and their observations where appropriate were included
- A 46 page document has been produced which has been sent to all the contributors
- All managers, Community Managers and Community Team Leaders at Bromley have received a PowerPoint presentation on this and the accompanying Action Plan
An online version of the strategy document can be downloaded by clicking here