Inclusive Action Group

Meeting 5

Public Parks Keep Out conference Nov 2003

In November we worked in partnership with GreenSpace to hold an international conference. Hosted in Manchester by the City Council, the event highlighted the importance of accessible parks and green spaces.

Talks over the days ranged from inclusive design, community involvement, and policy to the DDA and evaluation. There were keynote speeches from Dr Tony Kendle, Eden Project Foundation Director, and Valerie Fletcher from Adaptive Environments, in Boston USA.

We organised site visits to two of Manchester’s green spaces. Site visit 1 was to Wythenshawe Park. At Wythenshawe delegates had a tour with John Steedman and Steve Downey from the parks department, who run a horticultural programme for people with learning difficulties.

At Wythenshawe the Sensory Trust also ran a session on Sensory Mapping from our evaluation toolkit work (the Evaluation Toolkit is currently being developed to assist planners, designers and managers of public open space. The toolkit is a practical tool, intended to help with the key decisions involved in planning new developments, or initiating improvements to existing sites).

The other site visit was to Hulme Park, where the principle Landscape Architect Neil Swanson gave people an overview of the recent regeneration work in the park.

At the evening event there was an auction, the proceeds of which went to the Royal Schools for the Deaf in Manchester. Dominic Tinner was there to accept a cheque on their behalf.

Download the conference report (pdf 493k).

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