The green infrastructure valuation toolkit user guide

Building natural value for sustainable economic development: the green infrastructure valuation toolkit user guide
3 Place and communities
Green infrastructure can improve the environment, providing
opportunities for recreation, community cohesion, improved visual
amenity, and attracting inward investment.
Relevant types of green spaces and features – primarily planned urban green
infrastructure aimed at enhancing the urban environment, providing a setting for
investment and improving quality of life.
Green infrastructure types include:
amenity greenspace
civic squares and spaces
allotments
community gardens and urban farms
parks and public gardens
community woodland.
WHAT THE EVIDENCE SHOWS
Green infrastructure is one of the key components of quality of place, together
with other factors such as transport links, the range and mix of homes, services
and amenities, the design and upkeep of buildings and streets and so on. Work
done on behalf of the Northern Way 32 defines quality of place as ‘...the sum of
those factors – culture, local environment, public realm, housing, community
safety, access, health – which together make somewhere – whether a town, city
or region – an attractive place to live’.
Green infrastructure is part of a mix of factors contributing to quality of
place helping to position a place or location as economically attractive, and
therefore meriting investment.
Research conducted by CABE based on statistical analysis of the Best Value
Performance Indicators data (2006/07) has shown that there is a strong link
between people’s satisfaction with their local parks and open spaces and their
satisfaction with their neighbourhood. People do value and use their local green
spaces: three out of four people visit a public green space at least once a month
– and more than a quarter do so at least three times a week. 33
ECOTEC 34 describe how the debate surrounding green space has evolved
rapidly, in part ‘forced in the UK by the emergence of the concept of sustainable
communities, with quality of place and quality of life as key drivers of regeneration
and economic renewal’. ECOTEC highlighted the case for green infrastructure as
a key element of sustainable communities, linking the value that people place
upon green space - opportunity for recreation, improved image of place,
attractiveness to visitors, increased community cohesion and civic pride - with
additional land and property value and desirable business location that well
planned, high quality green infrastructure brings.
The scale of the impact is likely to vary: additional investment in an already
good quality public park may have less impact on quality of place than creating a
new local park in an area with little green space.
Isolating the contribution of green infrastructure is problematic, as is
identifying an indicator or set of indicators which adequately cover all aspects of
quality of place – the full range of benefits considered in the toolkit contribute to
making green infrastructure one of the quality of place’s key components. Much
of the literature focuses on land and property prices as a proxy for quality of place
– see section 5, Land and property. Section 9 considers recreation and leisure
benefits to people using green space. This chapter focuses on the benefits of
green space for community cohesion, and visual amenity.
Community cohesion
Various surveys have shown that green infrastructure has the ability to bring
people together and to promote social cohesion.
A 2004 literature review by the Health Council of the Netherlands 35 found three
papers addressing the social impact of shared green space. The presence of
green space correlated positively with social ties within a neighbourhood.
Communal/shared activities such as community gardening and allotments are
also seen as a means of improving local neighbourhoods, enhancing community
attractions and improving attitudes of residents towards their neighbourhood.
Useful studies include:
The value of public space, Cabe Space 2005
Greenspaces, better places, Urban Green Spaces Taskforce, 2002
QUANTIFYING
Landscape/visual amenity
This is the approach used by the toolkit. It is generally expressed as a
willingness to pay* for a view, and varies according to landscape type.
The simplest tool for valuing landscape and visual amenity is provided in Eftec’s
work on valuing the external benefits of undeveloped land - see below. The
values provided include a basket of benefits, including recreation. It does not take
account of local context - including green space nearby, the quality of the asset,
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