Take time out to enjoy your favourite park during Love Parks Week.

Nature is important to everyone and if you're in an urban environment greenspace is even more important.  It's because parks are so important that Tidy Britain takes a week each year to really showcase them in Love Parks Week, which this year runs 12 to 21 July​ 2019.  They say: "For this year's Love Parks Week we are encouraging everyone to get out and enjoy their favourite park. By using and celebrating your local park, you are helping us to protect them for future generations."

Just last week Alison McCann, Policy Manager at Fields in Trust outlined their new research which found that 2.5 million people across Great Britain without a nearby park or green space and that Only 6% of local parks and green spaces legally protected from development.  You can see all the findings and read about the Green Space Index here.

Southway Housing Trust says: "As a social housing provider in Manchester, we are lucky to own 180 green spaces within our urban setting. These spaces have become an urban oasis for our tenants and residents of Manchester as a whole." Discover some of the things they have done, from creating fairy trails to planting orchards and bringing people together in a variety of ways. Read on.

Managing an urban reserve is not always easy as Ian Beech, Senior Warden at Dudley MBC's Wren’s Nest National Nature Reserve explains.

When we think of greenspace, we usually think of parcels of green land: parks, sports fields, maybe gardens. While trees are important features within these landscapes, they can also be seen as small patches of greenspace in their own right – offering an area of green in an otherwise grey urban realm and ranging from single trees in gardens, parks and streets, to small clusters of trees and those that make up urban woodlands. Kathryn Hand, Kieron Doick, Liz O’Brien, and Clare Hall from Forest Research, and Susanne Raum from Imperial College London demonstrate the Valuing the benefits of urban trees for better greenspace management. More here.