Brockwell Park is one of 12 Lambeth parks and open spaces to be awarded a Green Flag award in a government scheme run by the environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy.
The award, now in its 20th year, recognises that a space has high standards, is well maintained and has excellent facilities.
The 12 Lambeth sites are Archbishop’s Park; Brockwell Park; Hillside Gardens; Kennington Park; Milkwood Park; Myatt’s Fields Park; Ruskin Park; St. John’s Churchyard, Waterloo; St. Paul’s Churchyard, Clapham; Streatham Rookery; Vauxhall Park; and West Norwood Cemetery, which is a new addition to the list of Lambeth award winners.
Cllr Jack Hopkins, Lambeth council cabinet member for regeneration, business and culture, said: “We are absolutely delighted to receive 12 Green Flag Awards for 2016. For us, the Green Flag Award publicly recognises and celebrates the fact that people living in, working in and visiting Lambeth are benefitting from safe, accessible and welcoming green spaces that are of the very highest quality.”
Whilst the park is reasonably tidy and free from litter it is becoming noticeable that this is slightly on the decline. Where are the men who use to go around during the day picking up litter? This along with the numerous bin collections that still happen in the early morning used to keep the park tidy and litter free for the bulk of the day. Also nobody ever enforces and challenges those who leave their dog mess behind. Again this is becoming an even more common issue in the park partly due to some dog owners engrossed on their phones and unaware of what their dog is up to. If the Keep Britain Tidy inspectors visited in the early morning when the bins are overflowing and litter strewn everywhere I think they would take the green flag back with them. Equally if they had visited anytime over the last 3 weeks with HGV’s galore in the park, 10 foot high metal fencing and grass that resembled a ploughed field they would certainly do a runner. Cllr Jack Hopkins might well be ‘delighted’ but he and Lambeth Council have to address these issues if the awards are to be repeated in 2017 and beyond.