Newspaper
Natural medicine
A leading health campaigner has called for public parks to be viewed as NHS outpatient departments.
Speaking at a seminar entitled ‘Does public health grow in public parks?’, Dr William Bird argued that green spaces have demonstrable health benefits and have a pivotal role to play in improving not only physical health, but mental well-being, too.
To explain this, he cited the ‘biophilia’ hypothesis – that we have an inherent desire for nature – and went as far as to suggest that it is written into our DNA. “For 100,000 years we were hunter-gatherers – we were programmed to desire open space,” he said. “So, in the 17th century, landscape designers tried to recreate this savannah-style landscape.”
However, this period of history marked a turning point. “Francis Bacon believed that scientific knowledge should be used to subdue nature and create devices that benefited mankind,” he added. “And this attitude continues to the present day; where, perversely, people are willing to pay £30 or more each month to exercise in an indoor gym, rather than walking, cycling or jogging in their local park.”
Yet science alone, he argued, cannot address our burgeoning health crisis and and went on to outline how osteoarthritis, due to inactivity, costs the UK nearly £1bn a year and cognitive decline and dementia costs up tos £20bn. Using Hyde Park as a model, he estimated that it could contribute to 10 per cent of the physical activity of 100,000 people living nearby, which could save the economy £3m and the NHS approximately £600,000 a year.
In conclusion, he highlighted how beneficial green space could be for young people, not just in the fight against obesity. “Parks are as effective as Ritalin in reducing ADHD,” he said. “The first seven years of school life in Norway are spent immersed in nature and enjoying green spaces, yet Norwegian children overtake their UK counterparts in literacy by the age of nine.”
The second speaker, Dr Melvyn Hillsdon of Bristol University, attempted to support Dr Bird’s theories with some hard data. He was commissioned by CABE Space to carry out a study of Norwich, assessing the relationship between the quality of urban green space and levels of physical activity.
According to Hillsdon, “European data shows that more aesthetically-pleasing communities have more physical activity and less obesity” – however, his findings did not bear this out. He said: “Access to urban green space does not appear to be associated with levels of recreational physical activity in our sample, but there is evidence that good accessibility may encourage active travel to work.”
In fact, those people with a ‘green corridor’ between them and their destination were found to be four-and-half times more likely to cycle or walk to work. Parents were also very keen to take children to school if it was through a green space.
Dr Hillsdon concluded by calling for further research, as the concentration of parks in the centre of Norwich was not necessarily reflected elsewhere. “This study makes it difficult to generalise due to the geographical variation across the rest of the country,” he said. In his opinion, studies should focus specifically on “the relationship between people’s perceived access to green space and their use of green space and overall physical activity”, as well as “the modifying effect on access to greenspace by other built environment characteristics.”
Sue Radley, director of Fira Landscape Limited, attended the seminar. She commented: “Dr William Bird provided the statistics we need to prove that a good landscape and access to open space has positive benefits for our health and state of mind.”
She continued: “If studies, such as Dr Hillsdon’s, put pressure on the Government to fund more parks, cycleways and access to the countryside then that has to be a good thing.”
Would you like to read more? To receive your copy of the Landscape Institute's monthly newspaper subscribe today.
