LDF Evidence Base Documents

Open Space Audit (OSA)

» View the pages in this section

What is the OSA?

The Pendle Open Space Audit provides an important part of the evidence base which will be used for the preparation of the Core Strategy and Land Use Allocations Development Plan Documents.

The new Pendle Open Space Audit 2008 was adopted on Thursday 20th November 2008 at the meeting of the Council's Executive.

The new Open Space Audit replaces the first audit which was adopted in 2004 and provides an update to the amount of open space in the borough. Since the 2004 audit was undertaken some sites may have been lost and some new sites may have been created.

The key outputs from the review of the study include:

• An updated analysis of existing open space provision, in terms of size, function and accessibility.
• An evaluation of areas and/or types of deficiency, whether in terms of function, location, quantity, accessibility, or quality; and any areas or types of surplus.
• Maps of open space provision (by ward).

Previous work stages

There were a number of stages involved in preparing the OSA:

Stage 1: Scoping work

The first stage of the Open Space Audit update was to review the different typologies of open space, revise the methodology used to undertake the quality assessment work and reconsider the quality assessment scoring criteria.

Stage 2: Survey work

The second stage of the study was to review the amount of open space in the Borough by checking the status of each site. This included removing sites from the audit where they were no longer considered to perform an open space function and adding new sites onto the audit which had been identified through other studies. Site visits were undertaken to all the sites under the following typologies: Amenity Greenspaces, Play Areas, Equipped Play Areas, Parks, Outdoor Sports and Civic Spaces. A quality assessment of these sites was undertaken using the established scoring criteria.

Stage 3: Analysis and draft report

The third stage was to analyse the findings from the survey work. Improvements were made to the way the survey data was analysed giving consideration to each open space typology at both a 'local' ward level and also at a more 'strategic' area committee level. A draft report was produced detailing the findings from the survey and analysis work.

Stage 4: Consultation on the draft report 

A six week consultation exercise was undertaken allowing interested parties, key groups, organisations and members of the public to have their say on the draft report.

Copies of the documents were sent out to all the libraries and Council shops across the borough. A large number of interested parties were specifically contacted to ask for their comments on the audit.

The consultation allowed people to point out any errors or conerns they had with the content of the report or if we had missed any sites that should have been included.

Stage 5: Changes and adoption of the final report

In total 166 comments were received from 14 parties. All these comments were considered and a recommendation was made to a suggested course of action. The majority of comments were taken into account and a final report was prepared and subsequently adopted (see Downloads section below).

For further details on this report please contact Jonathan Dicken on 01282 661723 or at jonathan.dicken@pendle.gov.uk.

 

Downloads

Final Report

Final OSA Report (November 2008)

Draft Report

Draft OSA Report (May 2008)