Residents and park visitors can now share their feedback about the borough’s parks and open spaces by completing the council’s annual park user satisfaction survey, with feedback encouraged before the survey closes on Friday 12 September 2025.
The survey gives residents and park visitors an opportunity to share views about what matters about their local parks, woodlands and open spaces. You can also separately let us know about any specific problems in Bromley’s streets or parks by reporting these via the website.
The council is custodian of 28km2 of green space in Bromley and we recognise the contribution that our large and varied open space portfolio makes towards Bromley being a great place to live, work and visit.
The park user satisfaction survey results are one of our key performance indicators for our parks management and grounds maintenance service, and your feedback helps shape the council’s decision making.
Last year for example we found that whilst residents were satisfied with ease of access, woodlands and grass maintenance, residents continue to have concerns about the condition of play areas in the borough. Working in partnership with Friends of Parks and community groups, we are pleased to have secured grant funding to refurbish the playgrounds in Hoblingwell Wood Recreation Ground and Churchfields Recreation Ground in 2025/26.
Through our Platinum Jubilee Parks Fund, we have also awarded funding which has enabled improvements to be made to another 11 playgrounds in 2024/25, with further improvements planned in 2025/26 for Church Road Recreation Ground in Biggin Hill, Shaftsbury Playground in Plaistow and Husseywell Open Space in Hayes.
The council has now fully committeed funds from its £1m Platinum Jubilee Parks Fund, enabling communities direct investment in parks and open spaces in the projects that most matter to them. The council has awarded funds to support 65 different projects which has included improvements to 24 playgrounds, biodiversity improvements including the installation of new community gardens, orchards and a wetland restoration at 7 sites. A further 8 projects have made improvements to facilities including tennis court resurfacing.
The council continues to apply for funding to protect heritage features in parks and open spaces and we were pleased to secure a grant of £434k from the Rural Payments Agency for a project to develop a second phase of restoration works for the Moated Manor at Scadbury Park, working closely with Historic England and the Orpington District Archaeological Society.
We continue to work towards the improvements of our waterbodies in our parks and open spaces, a £2m project to desilt the Lakes in Kelsey Park completed earlier this year, delivering improvements to water quality, ecosystems and water storage capacity. The council continues to explore grant funding opportunities to further improve our waterbodies and we are pleased to have secured a grant of £249k from the Water Restoration Fund to fund professional services to design a project to improve the water environment for the ponds at Keston Common. Through our Platinum Jubilee Parks Fund, the council has worked with the Southeast Rivers Trust and Friends of Riverside Gardens and Kent Ponds to restore wetlands in Riverside Gardens. We have also invested £50k into improving waterbody safety in our parks.
Following the planting of the Tiny Forest in Cator Park last year, we have been successful in securing further funding for further tree planting, including £45k from the Water Environment Improvement Fund and £175k from the Local Authority Treescapes Fund, which saw planting take place at over 10 locations within the borough. This funding has enabled us to plant five micro forests in our parks and to undertake a significant programme of whip planting in parks and open space riparian areas. We were delighted to have worked in partnership with our communities to plant these trees, with over 350 residents and 158 school children volunteering their time.
We have continued with our ambitious Tree Planting Programme, Treemendous, which has planted 1585 trees across the borough during the 2024/2025 planting season, with 1250 of these being brand new trees, with an additional 335 routine replacement trees. Since its launch in 2021, we have planted over 5000 trees.
We know that improving biodiversity is also important to our residents. Following the conclusion of the pilot of our Nature Friendly Verges which recorded over 113 floral species across the verges, we have permanently converted 8 verges and also launched a second trail at 6 new locations. We are also continuing our Sustainable Planting Trial into a second year; in the first year we recorded over 48 invertebrate species making their homes in these beds.
We secured Green Flag Awards for 9 of our parks, with Cator Park securing this prestigious award for the first time in 2024.
It is notable that may of the improvements we have been able to achieve have been made possible by working in partnership, and we particularly thank our Friends of Parks who make a material contribution to the quality of our greenspaces.