Bill Wilson MSP

Benefits of greenspace to be proved across Scotland: greenspace scotland’s new projects welcomed in Scottish Parliament

In a motion lodged yesterday, Dr Bill Wilson, an SNP MSP for the West of Scotland and a member of the Scottish Parliament’s Rural Affairs and Environment Committee, has drawn attention to a greenspace scotland initiative to prove the benefits of greenspace in twelve urban projects throughout Scotland.  Funded by the Big Lottery Fund Research Programme, the ‘Greenspace Is Good – So Prove It!’ programme will apply Social Return on Investment (SROI) methodology to assessing the value of greenspace.

Dr Wilson commented:  “A pilot project which used SROI to look at the value of a cycle pathway/green corridor from Strathclyde Country Park to Motherwell Town Centre revealed a sevenfold return on investment.  I am confident the latest work will replicate that.

“The expansion of the SROI approach is particularly welcome at a time of tight budgets, as it encourages ‘joined-up’ thinking.  The conventional narrow economic approach to decision-making is, I believe, not unrelated to the phrase ‘the law of unintended consequences’.  In other words, cutting back on the provision of parks and failing to maintain a pleasant green environment might seem like a sensible option for cash-strapped councils, but it results in increased stress levels, worse health, loss of community cohesion and increased crime.  In the long run it loses money rather than saves it.

“By contrast, the SROI approach compels planners to consider the wider aspects of developments.  It proves that improving the outdoor environment in urban areas is good for people, good for nature and, ultimately, good for the bottom line.  I congratulate the Big Lottery Fund and greenspace Scotland on this exciting new project, which I shall follow with interest.”

Notes to Editors

1.  Text of motion

Short Title: Greenspace Is Good - So Prove It!

S3M-05380 Bill Wilson (West of Scotland) (SNP): That the Parliament

welcomes the Big Lottery Fund Research Programme’s funding of greenspace scotland’s two-year social return on investment research programme called Greenspace is good – so prove it!; notes that this aims to enable 12 urban community greenspace groups to understand, calculate and demonstrate the impact of their projects in a way that conventional economic analysis would not, and anticipates that the project will add to the evidence, as referenced in motion S3M-05232, that greenspace has considerable benefits for individuals and communities such that every pound spent on developing it is returned severalfold in terms of improved health and wellbeing, reduced levels of crime, improved community cohesion etc.

2.  Background information

Applying social return on investment to community greenspace projects

3.  Related previous release

Sevenfold return on green space investment & new green space report welcomed by MSP