Transforming Calderdale’s Parks: A Community-Led Approach

Calderdale Council's Green Spaces and Street Scene (GSSS) is responsible for maintaining and improving parks, green spaces, and streets across Calderdale.

Through the Active Calderdale Place Partnership with Sport England, there was a real opportunity to explore the potential for long-term change. Active Calderdale’s focus on parks began two years ago, targeting key priority groups in areas of highest deprivation.

“The approach is targeted - focusing on those who need support the most. It’s co-designed, collaborative, and sustainable to drive lasting change.”

Putting Communities at the Heart of Change

We’re shifting toward a community-led approach, which means rethinking how services work—with local people at the heart of it.

Our aim is simple:

To make parks and green spaces safer, more accessible, and more attractive for everyone.

And here’s how we’re doing it:

1. Driving system change - bringing together local communities to help us understand what people really want, followed by collaborative conversations with services on realistic improvements.

2. Establishing Parks Partnership Groups - bringing relevant services and organisations together to work in a joined-up way.

“With a priority on safety, especially for women and girls, we’re supporting initiatives like Making Space for Girls and following Safer Parks guidelines.”

We’ve already delivered free Suzy Lamplugh Bystander training to Calderdale Council's Highways and Green Spaces teams as well as to wider organisations.

A Long-Term Commitment

Importantly, this isn’t just a short-term project. Calderdale Council has made a long-term commitment to this way of working.

Why?

Because parks can do more than just offer green space. They can support health, wellbeing, community connection, and real social change.

Our new partnership approach brings together all the groups involved in improving green spaces in a specific area or park.

Neighbourhood teams lead the partnership groups, with clear roles and responsibilities defined in terms of reference. Improvement plans are created based on community insight, and when funding becomes available, these plans guide how resources are spent to make meaningful improvements.

Spotlight on Local Parks

Shroggs Park

“We’ve influenced positive change with local authority officers who now listen to what the community wants in the park.” - Friends of Shroggs Park member

Regular community events are now taking place, with flyers created for Shroggs Park, alongside Beechwood, and Mixenden.

Mixenden Urban Park

With our partners, we've been supporting Making Space for Girls workshops, which are focused on gathering insights about how girls use the park.

Before the improvements, the park was seen as 'overgrown' and 'uninviting', with 'no places to sit'. After the changes have been made, it has now been described by residents as a safer, open green space with clear sight lines, benches, seating areas, and play equipment.

Progress So Far

We’ve made significant progress in bringing together services and organisations to form a truly collaborative partnership - something new for the area.

✅ 6 partnership groups and improvement plans now established:

Shroggs Park, Beechwood Park, Park Ward, Cornholme, Rastrick, Mixenden

✅ Match funding continues to be secured

✅ Council Neighbourhood teams are leading the park partnership groups

✅ All Sport England-funded improvements are now included in regular park maintenance schedules

✅ Social activation is built into the process to ensure green spaces are actively used

✅ Service restructure is underway to focus more on community-led work

✅ Invited to speak at the Northern APSE Conference (22 July 2025, Newcastle) alongside the GSSS Area Manager

Voices from the Community

“This group has brought about various conversations centred around local priorities and ensuring relevant services and investment opportunities are tailored to meet the needs of local people. It’s helped build local pride in place and strengthened relationships between different organisations and sectors.” - Community Partnerships Manager, North Halifax Partnership

“I believe we have influenced a positive change with local authority officers who now listen to what community services in a park should be delivered.” - Chair, Friends of Shroggs Park Group