It was obvious that this mess was the result of decisions. Twisting land management ideals such as 'creating spaces where the land can be reverted back to a wild and natural state to increase its biodiversity' to simply enable budget cuts. Ignoring the fact that many of the inner city parks have seen so much prolonged management over previous years that to allow a policy of a more greater wildlife / biodiversity value would require considerable funding and research as the land is wholly unsuitable for this purpose (certainly costs would amount to more than the previous management regimes) and if the resulting wildlife are simply pests as is the case in Hyde Park the new wildlife is a threat to not just the existing and future plants and trees but also human health.
As such any words used by those who have created such a policy which include 'sustainable' 'natural' 'ecologically friendly' etc., are using these words out of context, which may result in such poor management being adopted by other Cities and regions. This would be catastrophic and accelerate the continuing demise of UK land based industry across both the public and private sectors.
Ultimately unless major expenditure is undertaken to manage these areas and trees they will ultimately be lost.
Subsequently I attended a lecture in rural Devon by a countryside quango representative and again was left shocked at the fact that using the veil of 'conservation' meant that major cuts in maintenance in public spaces can be gained.
This led to a real fear that the spread of the misuse of terminology hiding the real issue, which is just budget cuts, is spreading fast.
There exists a real divide between the private and public sectors of land industry. And any of us who have had to work within the public sector are all too aware of the irrelevant bumf produced at huge cost supposedly relating to the projects. There are a number of threads touching on this subject on the LJN.
But whilst this divide allows for us within the private sector to increasingly work without boundaries, allowing us to be in control of all aspects of each project undertaken it is important to remember our pay rates and material rates are still governed by decisions made within the public sector and poor management practices may need to be adopted to match in with badly worded PR to defend the mis management of our green spaces. On the plus side it is very easy for us to achieve stunning finishes when compared with an increasingly poor public sector image.
But no matter what the pros and cons are, the biggest problem resulting from this issue is the fact that those who should have access to green spaces and as illustrated often actually need such access in health and well being terms will no longer be able to utilise public sector land.
Research and literature relating to land management is increasingly tailoured solely for 'quango' usage and often means we are reliant on investigating and inventing our own systems for land management purposes. If there were ever to be a link between this research and the huge bank of knowledge contained within the brains of those on the LJN and others it would be powerful tool for the industry as a whole and may lead the UK industry back to its now long lost reputation of being the best in the world. No accreditation or existing group can help and as such is it a ripe time to provide a new link or is it simply better to keep to the status quo and watch the public sector descend into an industry wholly reliant on hand outs and volunteer workforce with a wry smile on our faces? with a risk of seeing our own businesses having to justify more and more details. Lets be honest here any amount of lobbying to avoid this scenario is likely to be ignored or even add to the problem by a sudden need to create a PR department to defend against such lobbying.
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