Public parks play an important role in people’s lives. They are loved assets, valued for many reasons, but due to demand placed on local authorities’ budgets to support statutory services such as social care, non-statutory services like parks are facing budget cuts and are at risk of decline.

A series of leaflets and a toolkit, capture the experiences of the projects that were supported by the Rethinking Parks Programme to test and develop innovative ways of managing and financing the UK’s public parks. They outline what the projects tested, the challenges they faced and what they learned, as well as successful implementation examples and helpful tips.

We hope that this information will provide accessible, practical and useful guidance to encourage park managers, local councils and other innovators to explore different approaches to ensuring that parks and greenspaces are financially sustainable and remain valued community assets in the future.