The Land Restoration Trust provides a sustainable solution for the management of public open space. It is firmly established that green space can improve the quality of life for communities and provide economic uplift. Despite often sizeable financial outlays to create new spaces and rejuvenate existing ones many spaces fail to deliver the expected benefits. Often this is because funding is allocated to ‘do’ the project but not to maintain it when it is done. With no funding to deal with problem such as litter, vandalism and or even growing grass a space that had the potential to attract investment can be a barrier to investment.
The Trust protects the investment in the open space/green infrastructure and ensures spaces deliver their expected benefits. The key to the Trust approach is endowment funding. Included in the transfer of land to the Trust is a sum of money given which is invested. The Trust calculates the annual maintenance costs for a site, also taking into account periodic replacement /repair of the more permanent site elements – this is equal to the interest earned from the endowment each year. However the endowment can also be supplemented with other incomes such as service charge. Endowment funding may mean a project costs more on day one, however long term this method is much more cost effective and more importantly it is sustainable in perpetuity.
When created by a partnership comprising English Partnerships, Groundwork, the Forestry Commission and the Environment Agency, it envisaged that the LRT would act as a sustainable exit strategy for new open space created by big regeneration projects. However the endowment model has proved to be applicable to all open spaces.
The Land Restoration Trust allows a cost effective exit strategy for all land owners, developers and development/regeneration agencies. The Trust portfolio now includes both brown and green field land; large country parks and small nature reserves; play areas and packages of landscaped areas; and land from the public and private sector.
