Backed by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, we launched the Leeds Partnership Parks pilot project in Spring 2023. The project focussed on empowering under-served communities to shape and use their local green spaces on their own terms, co-designing parks for the future that better connected residents to both nature and neighbours.

Two years later, we invited Leeds-based Nifty Sustainability to evaluate the project’s progress. This wasn’t just a tick-box exercise for us, we wanted to explore what the project really meant to people – not just the headline impacts but the ripple effects too – and highlight the challenges that lay ahead.

We are thrilled to share the results of this evaluation with our wider community, both celebrating the model’s successes but also uncovering opportunities to build on the project’s learnings.

Only got a couple of minutes?

Check out our summary video, covering the evaluation’s key takeaways.

Want to know more? 

Nifty Sustainability dive into the detail in the learning summary report and three case studies shared below.

Some thank yous…

Before we wrap up 2025, we would like to thank our movement of community partners, volunteers, and funders for their role in transforming our priority parks into thriving community spaces. And of course a thank you to Nifty Sustainability for supporting us to embed the project’s learnings into our plans for the future.

Speaking of the future – you will see there is plenty to build on as we move forwards. If you believe you or your organisation could be a part of the next phase of the project, we want to hear from you! Please get in touch on info@loveleedsparks.org.uk