New campaign launched in face of littering epidemic in parks

Calling on everybody to please be kind to parks

24/07/20

Our new survey shows that more than half of the country’s parks have had to pull in extra resources to deal with the issues, including litter and anti-social behaviour, since lockdown was eased.  

Of those, 81% had to spend more on clearing up litter, 79% on bin emptying and 72% on maintaining public order or enforcing lockdown rules.  

The local authorities who responded to the survey – more than 100 of them in total – said they had spent, on average, an extra £33,000 on managing parks in the past three months, with one reporting increased spending of up to £150,000. Councils also reported clearing up, on average, 57 tonnes of additional waste from their parks.

All this has come at a time when local authorities’ resources have been stretched by the challenges of dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic and 42% of local authorities reported having lower staffing levels than usual.

Despite this, almost half (46%) say they will need to put extra staff in to manage parks over the summer holiday period and will need, on average, to spend an additional £47,000 to cope.  

The challenge facing parks staff can be summed up with a comment sent in by one council:

"The levels of litter and waste being left by members of the public has reached unprecedented levels. I have officers with nearly 30 years of experience working in parks and they claim they have never known a period as bad as this.”

Now, to support parks staff over the long summer holiday period, Keep Britain Tidy and its Centre for Social Innovation has launched a new campaign under the umbrella of ‘Love Parks’.

Using behavioural insights that show people respond better to messages from individuals rather than organisations such as councils, the campaign features images of real parks staff and park users with quotes that talk about how anti-social behaviour makes them feel, with each one urging people to ‘be kind’ to their park. The images use branding from the Government’s national ‘Keep it, Bin it’ campaign, in which keep Britain Tidy is a key partner.

Richard McIlwain, Deputy Chief Executive of Keep Britain Tidy, said:

“The UK was the birthplace of the public park and their value was recognised by many people during lockdown, as a haven of greenspace for exercise and relaxation.

But, as lockdown measures have eased over the past three months, we’ve seen a significant minority of people abuse these treasured spaces, with shocking scenes of anti-social behaviour, leading to littering, deposit of human waste and abuse of parks staff.

Clearly, effective and well-targeted enforcement will always have a role to play in curbing this behaviour, however, we also want to inspire people to look after our parks and the key workers who look after them. Hence, this campaign, which will be available to every local authority in the country and which is based on behavioural science, will act as an effective nudge to actively encourage people to treat our beautiful parks – and the amazing staff who work in them – with respect this summer.”

 

The campaign has been funded as part of the government’s Coronavirus response and will be bolstered with additional campaign activity led by Defra over the summer both online and in locations near to beaches and national parks. This activity will further highlight the impacts of littering, including non-medical PPE litter, as well as unauthorised barbeques and campfires, and breaches of the countryside code.

Environment Minister Rebecca Pow said:

“As the coronavirus lockdown has eased, the amount of litter being left in parks, green spaces and beaches across the country is unacceptable. I wholeheartedly support Keep Britain Tidy’s new campaign to tackle this issue.

There is simply no excuse to leave rubbish behind, and councils can issue fines of up to £150 to those caught doing it. If you are unable to dispose of litter, then please take it home so you don’t destroy what you have come to enjoy.”

 

The campaign is launching in eight parks across the country as an in-situ intervention which will be measured over the summer. In-situ materials are available to order.  Contact network.enquiries@keepbritaintidy.org