Bridgend County Borough Council (BCBC) has appointed Knight, Kavanagh & Page to undertake its Natural Greenspaces Study. This will provide the Borough with a thorough assessment of current provision and recommendations to improve this.

The study will also meet the requirements of The Countryside Council for Wales's (CCW) Providing Accessible Natural Greenspace in Towns and Cities Toolkit. The CCW stance is that accessible natural greenspaces make a key contribution to the quality of the environment and quality of life in urban areas. The Toolkit was introduced in 2006 to help local authorities identify current levels of provision and assist them to produce local standards and targets.

KKP will be using the recommended staged pathway approach, which has four main phases:

• Stage 1: Inception - briefing and preparation
• Stage 2: Assessment - inventory of sites through consultation and site assessments
• Stage 3: Analysis of provision - through application of national standards
• Stage 4: Modelling and recommendations - identifying solutions to meet deficiencies and modelling potential cost effective improvements

Our strong knowledge of the locality and Council services will help us to hit the ground running and our dedicated team will apply its extensive experience of open spaces planning to the study. In-depth consultation and quality fieldwork will result in delivery of an accurate, relevant and easily interpreted strategy, appropriate for use on a multi-departmental level.

We have a solid, long-standing relationship with Bridgend. Since 2003 we have conducted annual Strata surveys of pupils in Year 6 and 9 collecting data on sports participation and in 2007 we developed the Borough's five-year strategy for delivery of efficient, effective, fit for purpose, twenty-first century, sport and recreation services. Bridgend has also consistently demonstrated its commitment to innovative sports development and piloted our ground-breaking Year 7 physical literacy evaluation.

Claire Fallon, will lead on this study, supported by a team of consultants and researchers. She said,

"This latest study is an interesting addition to our portfolio. Typically we are appointed to assess all open space typologies. The focus of this study on natural greenspaces gives us the opportunity to dig deep and get to the root of habitat and environment in and around Bridgend."

For further details, please contact Claire Fallon, Senior Consultant, Email: claire.fallon@kkp.co.uk