1. Introduction
Parks have long been considered as a crucial part of U.K., they have penetrated roots of people’s life, from tiny parks in local level, country parks around the skirts of towns, to national parks of sizes similar to a city. Its contributions to social, environmental and economic fabric are unquestionable that public parks have attached great importance in the well-being of the nation. Despite of the highly-valued benefits that the parks have brought, they are now under all sorts of threats. The lack of capital and human inputs is endangering the survival of parks and stifling the functions performed by them. New ways of funding and management are needed to halt this threat. In the following, this report will discuss the role played by public parks in urban areas, their impacts to society, the policies of public park management, and to examine the challenges and threats that public parks are facing and the solutions to them.
2. History of Development
To commence with, it is important to have background knowledge about the history of public park development, its management and funding system before assessing their values and analyzing the challenges.
During the mid to late nineteenth century, the idea of public parks and landscape design were hot topics in town (GreenSpace). According to the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Report (2014), “the
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A beautiful park will be capitalized in the values of properties around it, as people would prefer better sceneries of trees and flowers, instead of buildings and roads. Well-managed parks would definitely add scores to a town’s image and attractiveness. According to a survey of 5928 respondents (GreenLINK, 2010)(p. 30 CSD), 97% agreed with the statement that “trees and open spaces can improve the appearance of the town”, reflecting the influence of green space to the overall environment of an