A postcode lottery has been revealed with Little London, Lincoln Green and Ebor Gardens having the lowest percentage amount of properties with gardens and shared spaces, with only 47% of properties having some form of private green space.
This is in drastic contrast to the Osmondthorpe, East End Park area, with 98% of its properties with gardens and shared spaces.
Residents of many areas of Leeds believe green spaces are very important to them. A Leeds Now survey with 57 respondents found that the average rating for the question “On a scale of 1-10, with one being not concerned at all and 10 being highly concerned, how important is having green spaces in Leeds to you?” was an 8.02.
Another question on the survey demonstrated how much people use these spaces regularly, with 27 respondents saying they used a green space in Leeds at least once a week.
Despite this, some places in Leeds lack private garden and shared space. For example, although Hyde Park has some public green space its amount of private space only equates to 76,234m², the lowest in Leeds.
Comparing this to the area of Bardsey, East Keswick, Collingham, Linton and Harewood which has the highest amount of green space in private areas in Leeds at over 2,067,986m² there is a clear difference in the access to private space.
This is shown below represented in football fields:
Roundhay Park, a similar suburb area, although more affluent than Hyde Park has 720,665m² of private green space or 66 football pitches.
However, overall in Leeds access to green space is better than every other area in the Yorkshire and Humber region. With the distance needed to travel to get to some kind of green space being much lower.
As well as this Leeds has the most amount of green space (although a likely factor of this is being the largest city in the region) in the Yorkshire and Humber region.
Speaking to Alex Langstaff of the Hyde Park Source charity organisation she said that: “Green spaces are integral to our mental and physical health. They reduce our stress and make us feel calmer amongst other things.”
She went on to explain about the effects Hyde Park Source’s community garden has had on people: “Hyde Park Source works with groups of volunteers to maintain 7 community access green spaces and they all tell us how working together… within a shared green space has helped their mental and physical health.”
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