Guys when this is all over we should be building more parks. Everybody deserves access to outdoor spaces.

One of my absolute heroes is Captain Sandys-Winsch. WW1 Fighter Pilot & landscape architect, he was the Lesley Knope of 20th Century Norwich. He was Parks Superintendent!

Anyways, WW1 was finally over, swiftly followed by the Great Depression, mass unemployment, general terrible misery, & Cap’n Sandsy-Winsch got to building them first purpose built park in Norwich: Heigham Park.

& to do this he needed staff. So he hired unemployed soldiers (job creation), planted more than 20,000 trees (environment), and by the time he retired created over 600 acres of park (free public spaces!).

In his time as Parks Superintendent, he oversaw the creation of:
Heigham Park (1923)
Wensum Park (1925)
Earlham Park (1925)
Wensum Park (1925)
Mile Cross Gardens

And all of those parks still are open today. You can go for your (legally permitted) walk in any of those parks. Because access to open spaces is a right.

So. Looping back, when this is all over we should build more parks! Make it a legal requirement that there must be a certain acreage of free open land put aside as per population density. Hire people to build these spaces. Build a bandstand, a cafe, a boating pond, a playground.

(That might be a law already, but I’m thinking not.)

Parks! They’re awesome! We should build more! Everybody loves parks!

The precedent has been set! Captain Sandys-Winsch did it...

See! This is the lovely @eatonparkfriend heron strutting his morning stuff. https://twitter.com/sarahgperry1/status/1246713697726271489