Today is UK Parklets Day, and so we want to invite you to take 5 minutes to contribute a potential parklet location to Possible (a UK climate charity), write to your councillor to show your support for parklets, and then design a parklet to put there. At the moment, Possible’s map has very few locations marked in London Borough of Bromley. Let’s change that now. You can do it here: https://interactive.wearepossible.org/parkletplotter/
What is a parklet? In a nutshell: a parklet is a car parking space that could be transformed into something for people to enjoy, to improve access to green space and give streets back to people and nature. Ned Boulting (a British sports journalist and television presenter best known for his coverage of football, cycling and darts) tweeted about parklets on Friday, noting that if you want to park a car on a street in London you pay on average just over £3 a week, but if you want to repurpose a parking space to serve the community in another way you will pay a hundred times that much (on average) to your local council. Ned notes that this tells you something about our priorities as a society. Parklets are a campaign tool and action gaining increasing currency as a way to challenge those priorities.
According to the UK Parklets Campaign, the parklet was born in 2005, the brainchild of Park(ing) Day, a public participatory art project in San Francisco. In London, Brenda Puech has been leading the parklet movement for several years. Now London Living Streets wants to establish a protocol allowing residents to apply for a ‘parklet permit’.
Go on, drop a pin on the map and email your councillor, and tell your friends to do the same. It will take 5 minutes. Let us know when you’ve done it.