Benjamin Town, GiGL Community Officer
On the 22nd of July 2019 London became the world’s first National Park City; and this celebration of London’s natural environment has sparked a city-wide interest in the capital’s greenspaces. While there is no official change to how London is managed, the National Park City movement aims to shift the mindset of Londoners to a greener, healthier and wilder city. It encourages the city’s residents to explore their surroundings and make use of the greenspaces around them. To help them discover their local parks and green spaces is the Big Green London Map by #GoParksLondon; after launching in time for Love Parks Week, the #GoParksLondon campaign returns for National Park City with an interactive map.
The Big Green London Map aims to promote local parks and their Friends Of groups, creating a community of greenspaces and their users. With each park having its own page detailing its Friends Of groups, wildlife, facilities and more, we showcase the great spaces that can be found just around the corner. GiGL’s expertise in data aggregation and curation provided the perfect platform to collect all this data on such a large scale; our experience in using species records submission forms provided us a template on which to design a data collection process for London’s parks. With amazing support from Friends Of Parks groups during the early stages of the webform, we managed to create the content foundations of the map. Crucial help from all members of the Big Green Map Consortium such as providing key contacts and creating the website embodied the community the project endeavors to promote.
Using the Big Green London Map is simple. Find a park near you and click on it to open up and reveal all its information; such as what facilities there are and any places where you can keep in touch and find out about events. The map also holds information provided by Friends Of Parks groups who share what they love about their park. If you are part of a Friends Of Parks or community group and notice that the parks closest to you are missing some information, then Join In! Simply fill out the form to request a personalised submission link for your park and enter your park’s details.
Help us make the Big Green London Map even bigger.