Increase the use of parks and gardens
in sustainable development policies -
for the benefit of all

The Spatial Strategy is the creation of measures to re-prioritise and promote garden heritage through policy development and direction. The project develops strategies to promote conservation of garden heritage, whilst ensuring policies help focus economic gain towards local business, promoting inward investment throughout the region, enhancing the regional profile in Europe. The Spatial Strategy will raise policy awareness, leading to greater recognition, investment and profile of garden assets.

As a first step towards a new spatial strategy, existing policies have been reviewed,   including an analyses of strengths and weaknesses and innovative concepts, allowing a comparison of strategies at local and regional level. While this review included policies and programmes from the regions throughout North West Europe, two major policies were identified as the most innovative and promising for the inclusion of parks and gardens into regional development: the Cultural Strategies in the regions of the U.K. and the REGIONALE in Northrhine-Westphalia. Both have been subject to more substantial case studies (which can be downloaded under "Reports") and will guide the following SWOT-Analysis and the work on a EGHN Spatial Strategy.

A themed workshop on "Innovative Regional Development" - held at Tatton Park in July 2004 - was the first major event of EGHN that joined internal and external experts from all participating regions. Six presentations highlighted  innovative regional planning strategies and gave some examples for the beneficial contribution that can result from an inclusion and creative use of parks and gardens as cultural assets, tourism destinations and "soft infrastructure". The documentation of the workshop is available under "Reports".

Main responsibility: Stiftung Schloss Dyck
Major supporting partner: Cheshire County Council

Contact person:
Christian Gruessen
gruessen@planplus.net