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Alan Teulon MBE, the former Head of Countryside Services at Northamptonshire County Council, created the Pocket Parks Scheme in the early 1980s, in response to the need to provide greater access to the countryside.
Initially, the Countryside Commission funded a three-year experimental post of Pocket Parks Advisory Officer to run the scheme. It also provided 25% of approved capital costs for each Pocket Park.
From the start, the scheme was a community-led initiative and by 1990, 18 Pocket Parks existed. At that point, the scheme was expanded to include urban areas and the permanent post of Pocket Parks Officer was created to both manage and develop the scheme.
Important, ongoing partnerships between all of Northamptonshire's District and Borough Councils, the Countryside Agency (formerly the Countryside Commission), Action for Communities in Rural England (ACRE), The Wildlife Trust and the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (BTCV) were also established at an early stage of the Scheme's development.
The Scheme has been so innovative that it became the forerunner of the Countryside Agency's Millennium Greens and Doorstep Greens initiatives. It also incorporated many of the Local Agenda 21 and biodiversity principles, long before they became mainstream policies. The scheme was awarded the national R.I.C.S. Conservation of the Countryside award (1995), and many individual Pocket Parks have also won awards.
The Pocket Parks Scheme continues to develop and expand - we now have over 80 Pocket Parks in the county - and has been recognised as a model of best practice with the award of Beacon Status Improving Urban Green Spaces in April 2002.
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