This note presents evidence on the value of Bicester’s green spaces to local people, which was gathered by the University of Oxford using two different methods: 1. A public survey in summer 2017, using interviews, a focus group and an online app; 2. A new online tool called ORVal that estimates the welfare value of green spaces for recreation anywhere in England. The public survey reached 136 people and gathered strong qualitative evidence that Bicester’s green spaces provide benefits for health, wellbeing and community cohesion. It also collected information on factors that block delivery of these benefits, ranging from familiar problems such as litter to more general issues such as loss of green space to development, or lack of joined-up routes. The ratio of benefits to ‘blocking factors’ averaged 2.5 to 1, but ranged from a high of 4.7 to 1 in Bicester East and Launton to a low of just 1.7 to 1 in Bicester North and Caversfield. The ORVal tool estimated that the green space in Bicester provides welfare benefits worth over £2.6 million per year, based on the expected number of visits per year. We have also mapped the straight line distance of people’s houses from the nearest green space using the Natural England Accessible Natural Green Space standards (ANGSt). This shows a lack of accessible natural green space in Bicester. Only 13% of properties in Bicester are within 300m of a natural green space over 2 hectares (Bure Park and Charbridge Way), and no properties are currently within 2 km of a large (20 hectare+) natural green space. These results have been used to draw up a list of options for improving provision of green space in Bicester. This includes improving wildlife habitats in the larger amenity green spaces (Langford Meadows, Southwold and Launton Road) so that they provide more ‘natural’ green spaces, enhancing the Skimmingdish Lane green spaces to fill a gap in provision in north-east Bicester, protecting / enhancing smaller green spaces in the Avon Crescent / Shakespeare Drive area, tackling problems with litter and pollution in certain areas, and improving links between green spaces including by providing road crossings at key points. The proposed community woodland at Burnehyll, together with the new country park and nature reserve in NW Bicester, could provide access to a large natural green space (within 2km) for 59% of the households in Bicester. There is a gap in provision for households in east Bicester which could, in theory, be met if access could be provided to the local wildlife site at Gavray Meadows.
Smith et al. (Mon,) studied this question.