green spaces – The NEN – North Edinburgh News

Scots need to make more time for the great outdoors

Survey data from People’s Postcode Lottery reveals Scottish attitudes to their connection with nature

While the British weather can be a bit of a lottery, this Spring Bank Holiday (May 26, 2025) is a great opportunity to spend much-needed moments reconnecting with parks, woodlands and open spaces.

This comes after a recent UK survey by People’s Postcode Lottery, where 45% of respondents in Scotland said they do not have enough time to enjoy the physical and mental health benefits of being in nature.

Laura Chow, Head of Charities at People’s Postcode Lottery, said: “The survey highlights that more people would like to spend time outside enjoying nature, so I hope this bank holiday provides an opportunity for many to embrace the great outdoors in their local park or woodland.

“The incredible plant species and wildlife in these areas offer a great way to reconnect with nature and enjoy its benefits.

“Players of People’s Postcode Lottery raised more than £40 million in 2024 for charities working to protect wildlife and the natural world.”

The UK-wide survey revealed attitudes, relationships and connections towards nature and the environment. Among these include attitudes towards lifestyle and environmental topics, including sustainability-focused practices.

Information from respondents living in Scottish postcodes found:

82% said they felt that spending time in nature was important to their overall wellbeing and mental health.
49% said they only feel fairly connected to the environment around them.
17% spend intentional time outdoors once a month or less.
82% of respondents said spending time in nature is important to their overall wellbeing and mental health, and 45% said a lack of time was a key part of not being able to spend more time outside.
17% of people surveyed said they intentionally spend time outdoors in parks, forests or other natural spaces every day, while 35% said they spend time outdoors several times a week.
A staggering 17% of people saying they spend intentional time outdoors only once a month or less.

Empowering people to get out more

People’s Postcode Lottery supports a huge range of environmental charities, including Woodland Trust, The Wildlife Trusts and Friends of the Earth. These organisations help protect and preserve nature so everyone can spend more time in green spaces, forests, parks and beaches across their own postcodes and beyond.

You can get involved too; use this bank holiday to immerse yourself in nature, by taking on some nature trails with your family, organising a beach clean with your friends, or swapping your gym session for a run through your local park.

All of these are great ways to reconnect with the environment and benefit from the abundance of parks and open spaces available in your area.

Over £450,000 in funding awarded to seven projects for tree planting in Scotland’s cities and towns

WINDFALL FOR GRANTON COMMUNITY GARDENERS

The Urban Forestry Programme is supporting projects in urban areas to help more people experience the benefits of trees

Future Woodlands Scotland (FWS), the charity dedicated to creating and conserving woodlands across Scotland, has selected the first seven projects to receive large grants of up to £100,000 from its Urban Forestry Programme Challenge Fund.

The Urban Forestry Programme is an ambitious ten-year project that sees FWS working alongside project founding partner bp to support and improve green spaces in Scotland’s cities, towns, and urban areas.

The seven successful projects focus on increasing access to green spaces in underserved areas, promoting biodiversity, and enhancing the quality of life for residents. They aim to create a long-lasting impact on local communities, offering opportunities for outdoor education, mental and physical health improvement, and strengthening community ties.

The projects include:

Govanhill Baths Community Trust, Creative Canopy Project, Glasgow (above)

An arts and environmental project based in Govanhill which invites residents, artists and growers to co-create a dispersed orchard across the neighbourhood.

Glasgow City Council, The Glasgow Canopy Project

Planting street trees, woodland planting, hedgerows and habitat creation in the Govan and Dalmarnock areas of Glasgow.

St Marks Primary School, Planting our Way to a Better Future, Glasgow

Planting a combination of whips and standard trees in school grounds in Barrhead, East Renfrewshire.

Edible Estates, Nature Around Us, Edinburgh (above)

Working with residents, schools and community organisations to establish woodlands and orchards within two council housing estates in Edinburgh.

West Lothian Council, West Lothian Urban Tree Planting Project

Planting trees in parks and public green spaces, residential areas and school grounds and giving residents the opportunity to be involved.

South Lanarkshire Council, Removing Barriers to Tree Planting

Planting trees in strategic locations across South Lanarkshire, with a link to Clyde Climate Forest to allow collaboration with partners.

City of Edinburgh Council, Canopy Communities Project

A partnership project with Granton Community Gardeners to support tree planting and ecological connectivity in three areas of the city including co-design with residents.

Funding for these projects follows an announcement earlier this year about the first three projects – Friends of Inch Park, Friends of Linn Park and Norton Park SCIO – to receive small grants of almost £51,000 between them.

A total of 33 applications were submitted across two competitive grant categories: projects ranging from £2,000 to £20,000, and those ranging from £20,000 to £100,000.

Shireen Chambers, CEO of FWS said: “It’s been fantastic to see the response to the first year of the Urban Forestry Programme Challenge Fund with 10 projects selected for funding across both grant categories.

“We looked for projects with a strong urban focus which prioritise areas most in need of trees and woodlands. We want to ensure everyone can benefit from trees – by learning about them, engaging in their care or simply spending time around them.

“These greening projects will bring more trees into the heart of our towns and cities – enhancing spaces, strengthening communities and helping more people connect with nature.

“We are proud to lead this important initiative with the backing of our founding partner bp and we look forward to seeing how these projects create lasting change over the coming years.”

Projects were chosen based on the contribution they could make to the Urban Forestry Programme goal of helping towns and cities across Scotland achieve the 3:30:300 rule: everyone should see three trees from their home, every neighbourhood should have 30% tree canopy and quality green space within 300 metres

The City of Edinburgh Council was awarded £100,000 over three years to recruit a Canopy Development Officer for its Canopy Communities project.

The project will support the co-design of greener spaces in three areas of the city, educating residents on species, biodiversity and the importance of trees, with the aim of achieving 30% canopy cover.

City of Edinburgh Council Leader Jane Meagher said: “Trees make life better for everyone and this is an opportunity to plant more, where people want them.

“We know just how important green spaces are to people’s health and wellbeing and initiatives like Canopy Communities, alongside others like our commitment to become a Million Tree City by 2030 and our Thriving Green spaces 2050 strategy, are about involving communities to create, protect, and sustain woodland and biodiversity across Edinburgh.

“I’m delighted with this funding, which will let us progress essential work on our Canopy Communities project. It recognises the impact this project will have on enhancing and growing green space in the city where it is most needed.”

Increasing the number of trees in Scotland’s cities and towns is crucial in supporting the journey to net zero and delivering a wide range of socio-economic benefits. Urban tree cover is currently less than 16%, much lower than the EU average of 30.2%.

Applications for funding were assessed using the Tree Equity tool, which was created to address imbalances in urban tree distribution by American Forests, a US non-profit organisation, and was brought to the UK by the Woodland Trust and Centre for Sustainable Healthcare.

In addition to the 10 funded projects, the Urban Forestry Programme has also supported two pilot projects: a fruit and nut tree planting project in Stirling, and a tree warden volunteer scheme in Glasgow.

Applications for the 2025 Urban Forestry Programme Challenge Fund will open in November.

More information on the Urban Forestry programme is available at www.futurewoodlands.org.uk

Applications now open for the Grow Your Own grant scheme

Community groups in Edinburgh are being invited to apply for funding from a £50,000 pilot scheme by the City of Edinburgh Council to establish new food growing projects.

The “Grow Your Own” community grant initiative will welcome applications from projects aimed at establishing new community growing projects. Applications for funding are invited to help the creation of new growing spaces, supporting the establishment of growing groups, and promoting education around urban food production.

Grants of up to £5,000 will be awarded to constituted voluntary and community groups across the city, with projects running for up to 12 months.

The £50,000 funding has been allocated from the Flood Prevention/Biodiversity (including food growing) budget, which was approved in the Council’s budget on 22 February 2025. This fund aims to provide smaller community groups with essential support to establish community growing initiatives.

Funding can be used for a variety of purposes, including:

Purchasing seeds, plants, and tools
Equipment for community garden cooking areas
Education and training activities
Personal protective equipment
Staff time directly related to establishing the growing area

Culture and Communities Convener Val Walker said: “This is a wonderful opportunity for Edinburgh communities to get involved in urban food growing.

“The city already hosts over 45 allotment sites with over 1,700 council-managed plots, along with more than 70 community growing projects. Through Edinburgh’s Food Growing Strategy (2021- 2026) and Allotment Strategy (2017 – 2027) we aim to expand local food growing initiatives.

This year’s scheme will operate as a pilot program, and its impact will be assessed. If successful, and funding permitting, we could see this becoming an annual initiative.

To apply, groups must meet the Council’s Standard Conditions of Grants. Full details can be found on the City of Edinburgh website.

The application process will be administered through the City of Edinburgh Council’s Your Voice platform, designed to ensure a simple and efficient application experience.

The deadline for applications is noon on 12 May.

Enjoying Edinburgh’s green spaces this summer

Culture and Communities Convener, Councillor Val Walker writes about enjoying Edinburgh’s green spaces this summer:

With the warm weather upon us (for now at least!), offering a glimpse of the summer ahead, I feel incredibly fortunate to live in a city like Edinburgh – not least given how much green space we have to enjoy.

With 144 parks and green spaces across the city – making up an incredible 49 per cent of Edinburgh’s total area – it’s easy to see why we’re considered the UK’s greenest city.

Of course, we already knew the positive impact our parks on people’s physical and mental health and wellbeing by providing space for exercise, relaxation, social contact with friends and family, and opportunities for children and young people to play – but the Covid pandemic truly highlighted this.

With 38 of our parks recognised by the Green Flag Award scheme, which highlights the quality of our parks and the efforts of those who maintain them (more than the rest of Scotland put together), it’s a case of quantity and quality. And with more trees per resident than any other UK city (712,000 trees vs. 526,000 people), we’re well on our way to becoming a Million Tree City by 2030.

But there’s always more we can do and, through our Edinburgh’s Thriving Green spaces 2050 strategy, we’re committed to safeguarding, preserving, and improving these areas so that people can continue to enjoy them, and communities feel involved in their upkeep. And through our ongoing partnership with Fields in Trust, we’re working hard to ensure our residents are within a ten-minute walk from a protected green space.

However, while people rightly recognise the value of local parks that are convenient to them, they can become places to be avoided or underused if they feel unsafe or if the facilities are of poor quality.

That’s why, when setting the annual council budget in February, we approved an additional £3.5m investment in our infrastructure and facilities.

This includes close to £1.5m on projects to repair and improve paths, walls and bridges across the city, £800,000 committed to permanent toilets in Leith Links, Meadows, and Inverleith park (with further investment in installing temporary facilities across the city until the end of October), ongoing in play parks, with over £200,000 set aside for the new play area and equipment at West Princes Street Gardens, and a further £200,000 allocated to the introduction of a number of park lighting projects.

Hopefully, this highlights our ongoing commitment to preserving and improving our city’s for now and future generations.

If you’re out and about and enjoying these spaces, can I please ask that you to:

Bin your litter: If a bin is full, please take your litter home.
Don’t get caught short: Check where public toilets are located.
Pick up after your dog: We love seeing furry friends enjoying our parks, but remember, the city is a shared space.
Extinguish and bin your BBQ: When enjoying a BBQ, please do not put it directly on the grass, and always fully extinguish BBQs before disposing of them (some parks have BBQ-only bins).
Respect our parks and other users: Our parks are for everyone, young and old.

Please help us to ensure our parks and green spaces thrive and remain clean and welcoming for all this summer.

Bringing communities together in cleaner, greener spaces

Councillor Val Walker writes about revitalising our town and local centres with a 20-minute neighbourhood approach:

Being able to live well locally is incredibly important to our quality of life. Our town and local centres play a huge role in daily lives. Whether you live round the corner or in the surrounding area, many of us meet friends and family, shop, work, use libraries and other local services, and enjoy culture around our high streets.

The importance of town and local centres has been a leading thought in updating one of our key strategies to help people across Edinburgh live in places that are healthier, greener, more vibrant and inclusive.

The updated 20-minute neighbourhood strategy outlines our support for local living to give more people more choice within their neighbourhood, while also making it easier to travel further to reach the other services and facilities they need on public transport and by active travel. It’s one that many communities already enjoy, but sadly isn’t a universal experience for all of our residents.

Local centres that are easy to access and great places to spend time can boost our own health, help us to be more physically active, and make it easier to connect with the other people in our communities.

This work is already well underway in Craigmillar, Muirhouse and Pennywell where our regeneration projects have enhanced the local centres with the delivery of new community facilities, shops, and homes.

They will soon be joined by the new Community Hub at Macmillan Square, which will feature an early years centre, library, skills hub and expanded North Edinburgh Arts facility.

New active travel links with green spaces and areas for socialising are also being planned to make it easier to access the local centres and create a more pleasant place to live and visit.

We are also approaching the next stages of an exciting town centre revitalisation programme in Dalry and Portobello. These town centres are built around busy main roads with compromised and cramped public spaces.

Our engagement work in these areas earlier this year presented a real appetite for change and ideas for making local spaces more people-friendly. These ideas have helped shaped some of the very initial plans for development, which we will be presenting to the community through consultation next year. We strongly welcome everyone’s feedback.

This is our 20-minute neighbourhood approach in action, ensuring services and facilities are close to people, making them easier to access and helping make walking, wheeling and cycling to be the natural choice for shorter journeys.

If we work together, we can start to see how all residents throughout Edinburgh can enjoy a more thriving city that brings communities together in cleaner, greener spaces.

Drylaw Greenspace Consultation

FRIDAY 8th SEPTEMBER from 12 – 2pm at EASTER DRYLAW PARK

https://facebook.com/events/s/drylaw-greenspaces-consultatio/319072190598050/

Pop by Easter Drylaw Park on Friday between 12 and 2 and speak to Esperanza from Edinburgh & Lothians Greenspace Trust who will be there to hear what you think could be done to improve the greenspaces in our area.

Please respond to our event link above as this really helps us keep track on how many people we are reaching.

Thanks!

Park Portraits campaign launched to help safeguard our Parks and Greenspaces for the future

**– greenspace scotland announces new photography series to help raise vital funds for Scotland’s parks –**

greenspace scotland is today announcing the launch of Parks4Life: Scotland’s first ever fund for parks and greenspaces, with a goal to raise one million pounds by the end of 2023 to help support Scotland’s parks with a sustainable fund for the future.

To celebrate the launch of the Parks4Life fund, the greenspace charity is launching Park Portraits, a digital photo gallery bringing to life the stories of a dozen Scottish people and the ways that parks have enriched their lives.

From Aberdeen to Cumbernauld, Edinburgh to Dumbarton, and across to the Hebrides, greenspace scotland has worked with talented Scottish photographer David Anderson to capture soulful portraits of people who exemplify the value that parks provide.

The funds raised through Parks4Life will be invested to provide an endowment to provide an ongoing source of funds for parks. The endowment will be used by communities across Scotland to support local park improvements, activities and events; making sure local parks from large cities to small towns are nurtured and cherished for the future.

Parks and greenspaces are amazing places at the heart of our communities. They give us breathing spaces where we can take time out from the stresses of our everyday lives, places where we can relax and spend time with family and friends, and spaces where nature can flourish in the heart of our towns and cities.

Local greenspaces make a huge contribution to our health, our quality of life and our community spirit. And we really love them: each year, Scots make over 162 million visits to local parks and greenspaces.

Free to use, open and available to everyone, parks are great community assets, but not everyone has easy access to quality local greenspaces.

The Park Portrait series celebrates people from a wide range of backgrounds and uncovers their special reasons for enjoying parks, like Willie Mungall, a veteran Royal Marine Commando who has improved his health with a weekly walking group in Edinburgh’s Saughton Park as part of the ‘Walk with a Doc’ programme led by Health All Round.

Also featured is Greg Borthwick from Dads Rock, a peer support network for dads in Edinburgh. Greg is thrilled to share his love of the outdoors with other dads and often takes his group to the woods at Roslin Glen.

Other subjects in the series include ‘fire spinner’ Iga Sobieraj learning her craft in Pilrig Park, a Team Great Britain Paralympian with a pre-competition ritual to clear his head, and three generations of family that visit the park which holds special childhood memories for each of them.

The Park Portraits gallery is available to view online here. The portraits will also be making their way through some of Scotland’s parks this autumn in a travelling exhibition aimed at inspiring the public to donate to the Parks4Life fund.

greenspace scotland is inviting park lovers from across Scotland to get involved with Parks4Life by taking their own Park Portrait and sharing their park story here, or by making a donation to the Parks4Life Fund.

Julie Procter, Chief Executive of greenspace scotland, said: ““Greenspace is a universal service for all of Scotland’s urban residents – we know that access to these spaces is a massive factor in quality of life, and can be a game changer in creating healthier, happier and stronger communities.

“The Park Portraits project has allowed us to tell the real stories of everyday park users, from those with fond family memories to the volunteers that enable these greenspaces to provide an oasis for their visitors. It’s been an absolute pleasure to hear how many people have a deep connection with their local park and are keen to share their stories.

“Our hope is the Park Portraits series will inspire other people who love their parks to support the Parks4Life fund by donating, as well as sharing their own park stories online. Together, we can help keep Scotland’s parks in good heart for our children and grandchildren to enjoy.”

Development of the Parks4Life Fund has been supported by a grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Using money raised by The National Lottery, the Heritage Fund inspires, leads and resources the UK’s heritage to create positive and lasting change for people and communities, now and in the future.

Donations to Parks4Life can be made online or by texting PARK to 70450 to make a one-off donation of £5.

People across Scotland who would like to share their own Park Portrait and park story are invited to post on social media using the hashtag #Parks4LifePortraits and submit to the greenspace scotland page here.

Councillor organises Drylaw walkabout

Inverleith SNP councillor Vicky Nicholson has organised a walk round in Drylaw with council officers from the parks team and police on Thursday 29 June at 1pm, meeting at White Church.

Cllr Nicholson said: “This is in response to a few requests by local people and hopefully any questions people have about maintenance of green spaces, areas where people store motorbikes and also other Drylaw issues can be asked and, if not answered during the walk round, followed up by officers and police”.