Cleaner, Greener and Safer

Greener

We have been working hard to improve the borough's parks by investing money and working with residents to design parks and open spaces that will reflect how you want to use them.

Here are some of the things that we have been working with you on to make the borough greener.

Play areas

We opened 3 new play areas this year, 1 in Pondfield Park and the other 2 in Goresbrook Park and worked with the local schools to ensure the play areas would be used by young people
Pupils from Godwin Primary School officially opened the new children's play areas at Goresbrook Park, Dagenham. The play area for 4 to 8 year olds is 1 of 2 adventure playgrounds especially created for the park in Dagenham
We ring fenced more than half a million pounds for the playgrounds, as well as re-fencing around the basketball court and resurfacing it, new 5-a-side football goals and flowering climbing plants along the fences. The development work at the park is part of our strategy to improve all the borough's parks and green spaces
Pupils from Marsh Green primary school have created a flower bed for their local park, Old Dagenham Park based in Siviter Way

Awards

We were awarded a prestigious silver award at the annual London in Bloom Awards 2007
Judges who visited the borough in July 2007 were impressed by the enthusiasm of the borough's staff and attractive planting and awarded the borough the prestigious commendation
Judges pay particular attention to the amount of graffiti and litter they see on their tours. They are also keen to see a significant commitment to recycling and a healthy community involvement in protecting and enhancing the environment
Green fingered residents in Barking and Dagenham have been honoured at an event held by the Mayor.

Gardeners from across the borough were invited to enter their gardens, container displays and hanging baskets and allotments into a competition held by Barking and Dagenham Council in conjunction with London In Bloom and sponsored by Asda and the Havering Fencing Co Limited.

Awards were made in 4 categories, allotments, front gardens, containers and hanging baskets and for the best community garden. Presentations were made by fomer Barking and Dagenham Mayor Councillor Fred Barnes.

Each runner up received a certificate of excellence from the Council. The winners took home a certificate and a silver cup or plate.

Judging was undertaken by representatives from the London In Bloom competition, who were escorted around the borough by Parks Officers Ian Sheppard and Mick Harris. The best entries into the Barking and Dagenham were automatically entered into the capital contest

Parks consultation feedback

Consultation work has been carried out to find out how specific parks such as Parsloes, Goresbrook, Abbey Green and many other parks across the borough should be improved.

The annual parks consultation was sent out to more than 7,000 residents to find out how you use and parks and open spaces in Barking and Dagenham and your general thoughts on them.

The results of the findings are back and the majority of people surveyed use a park or green space in the borough.

80% of those surveyed said they use a park or green space and 74% used parks located in Barking and Dagenham.

65% of those questioned thought that the borough had the right mix of parks and open spaces and regularly vested their closest site, with over 60% of people visiting a park once a week.

The main reasons given for visiting parks in the borough varied from taking children to play, relaxing, dog walking and viewing the wildlife.

Those surveyed spent an average of an hour in the park with 58% saying the times they visited their parks varied.

The cleanliness of parks was a key issue for all those questioned in the survey, 51% rated the parks as good to very good with only 12% stating that levels of cleanliness were poor and 5% stating levels were very poor.

43% of people thought that their parks were safe or very safe, 17% had never thought about whether the parks they visited were safe or not and 32% of people felt unsafe in their parks.

Residents expressed their disappointment with the state of toilet facilities in the boroughs parks with only 10% rating the toilets from fair to very good, 15% thought the standards of toilets were poor, 12% said they were very poor and 44% said toilets were non-existent in the parks they visited.

Play areas rated very highly with 60% of people taking part in the survey rating them as fair to very good. Only 6% stated that they did not have play areas in the parks they visited.

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Cleaner, Greener and Safer

Greener

Play areas

Awards

Parks consultation feedback

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