28 April 2015
The Landscape Group will support The Parks Alliance by providing business support, through a newly announced arrangement.
The Landscape Group will support The Parks Alliance by providing business support, through a newly announced arrangement.
The Parks Alliance (TPA) is the voice of UK parks, representing the people and organisations that create, maintain, invest in and use public green spaces. Its objective is to promote and protect the public parks we are proud to have at the heart of UK life and culture. The UK-wide Alliance includes 40 organisations and senior park industry figures from local government parks services, private contractors, industry bodies, NGOs and volunteer and park friends groups.
The Landscape Group, established in 1919, is one of the largest and longest established green service specialists in the UK. The company offers services in park management, grounds maintenance, tree surgery, street cleaning and landscape construction.
Rob Pearce, TPA Business Manager in the Strategic Parks team, will provide business and membership services and offerings for the Alliance and develop the fundraising element of the Alliance, among other matters. Rob has recently joined TLG, coming from a background of social enterprise management. He has lectured on Social Enterprise and Regeneration at UCL, Kings College London and in Milan, Italy.
Sarah Hughes-Clarke, Business Development Director at TLG and TPA interim board member, says the relationship aligns interests as TLG's core business is reliant on investment in park services.
"It's difficult to attract good people into jobs as park or greenspace managers. Raising the profile of parks and those that work within them should encourage great candidates to come and work in parks. Also, if green spaces are valued by decision makers in government, the greater and more sustainable is the green space market. Properly resourced parks and open spaces are not just 'nice to have', they have been proven to improve the local economy in terms of attracting visitors and businesses, raising land values and contributing to the environmental sustainability and the health and wellbeing of our communities".
"TPA is a young organisation growing quickly, and TLG's business services will enable TPA to move to the next level. TLG will provide TPA with business management services through the secondment of a Business Manager and access to advice from other TLG business specialists."
"TLG applauds the vision and commitment of TPA's founders, and is very optimistic about the future of the organisation. Together with the communications support provided from the Landscape Institute, we believe The Parks Alliance now has a solid baseline of support from which to move forwards and achieve its objectives."
Mark Camley, Chair of The Parks Alliance and Executive Director for Park and Venues at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, says the partnership with TLG will help the Alliance deliver its agenda of promoting and protecting public parks.
"Entering in to a partnership with The Landscape Group will provide TPA with dedicated support to help us organise and campaign more effectively. It also signals that TPA is not just about the traditional local authority element of the Parks sector, but that it embraces "contractors" as well. The problems we face apply to private and public sector."
"TLG will help in developing our business model, bringing a level of commercial acumen to our thinking. I hope that it will also encourage other businesses to think about how they can support TPA."
"With dedicated support from The Landscape Institute and The Landscape Group in place we should be able to get some real traction with the organisation, and delivering on our agenda."
