WWL3.1
Access to Green Space
Where we live
- Neighbourhood
Access to Green Space
Public Health England (PHE) define greenspace as any area of vegetated land, urban or rural. These spaces, collectively known as green infrastructure, offer numerous benefits for health, wellbeing, and the environment. PHE emphasizes that greenspaces are essential assets for local communities, aiding in health improvement, reducing healthcare costs, addressing social inequalities, fostering social cohesion, and combating climate change.
Research indicates that living in greener environments promotes better physical health, aids in recovery from illness, and enhances mental wellbeing. Access to greenspaces correlates with positive physiological outcomes and reduced levels of depression, anxiety, and fatigue. Additionally, greenspaces contribute to community cohesion, decrease loneliness, and mitigate the adverse effects of pollution, noise, heat, and flooding.
Moreover, disadvantaged communities tend to experience greater health benefits from greenspaces, which can help alleviate socioeconomic-related health disparities. Therefore, investing in greenspaces and creating greener urban environments can serve as a tool for building a fairer society.
The PHE greenspace review highlights recent valuations indicating significant economic and health benefits associated with access to greenspaces:
- Improved physical activity in greenspaces could potentially save £2.1 billion annually in health costs across England.
- In Birmingham, parks and greenspaces contribute nearly £600 million annually to society, with £192 million attributed to health benefits.
- Sheffield demonstrates a remarkable return on investment, with every £1 spent on park maintenance yielding £34 in health cost savings, primarily benefiting local residents.
- Properties within 100 meters of public greenspaces in England and Wales are, on average, £2,500 more expensive than those located over 500 meters away, indicating a 1.1% premium in 2016, suggesting that proximity to greenspaces is valued by the public.
Key Value
A monetised social value of £3,600
This is the value to 1 person for 1 year who strongly agrees ‘local green spaces are within easy walking distance’. It is calculated using the base value of £13,000 as the monetised value of a 1 WELLBY change in wellbeing.
1 WELLBY is an increase in life satisfaction by 1 point on a scale of 0 to 10.
This outcome is associated with 2 UN SDGs and 3 UK Central Government Social Value Model Policy outcomes
Where does this headline value come from?
There are existing values relating to access to greenspace, and there are validated (tried and tested) ways to most accurately ask about these.
The values are guided by government policy (The Green Book) and sophisticated research into the relationship between access to greenspace and wellbeing (measured by life satisfaction.) The Green Book recommends that life satisfaction is expressed as £ monetised wellbeing, using the value of £13,000 for 1 WELLBY, over one year (see section on life satisfaction.)
They all come from The WELLBY Value Guide by State of Life and use data from the Monitor of Engagement with the Natural Environment Survey (MENE). The coefficients indicate the difference in life satisfaction associated with being in each category. Note that the MENE data does not have a longitudinal component and they therefore must rely on cross-sectional regressions to produce the wellbeing coefficients. This implies that the corresponding results are less robust and more likely to be upward biased; They have applied a downward adjustment of 50% in an attempt to counteract this bias.
Research using national datasets can estimate the isolated impact of a change in access to green space on life satisfaction, after accounting for important controls such as age, health, socio-economics and other demographics. This research has been done by State of Life (The WELLBY Value Guide), which found that even after accounting for all these other factors, compared to someone who ‘neither agrees nor disagrees’, someone who ‘strongly agrees’ ‘local greenspaces are within easy walking distance’ is associated with an increase in life satisfaction by 0.46703. Therefore this change in access to greenspace is worth 0.46703 WELLBYs, or 0.46703*£13,000/2 = £3,036 (rounded to £3,000).
Adjusted for inflation to 2023 is £3,563. Our approach to inflation adjustments is explained on our Methodology page HERE
An overall rounded value of £3,600.
Local Needs Analysis Data Source
Before using this MeasureUp value, we encourage you to assess the local need in relation to the activity or outcome.
Here is the most useful initial data source for assessing local need in relation to this value
To assess local needs related to the value WWL3.1 ‘Access to green space’, you can use detailed indicators that measure the availability and accessibility of parks and green areas.
Key data sources from Fields in Trust include:
- Green Space Index – Assesses the amount of publicly accessible park and green space available per person, updated annually at the LSOA level.
- Population not within a 10-minute walk to a local park or green space – Measures spatial access, identifying communities with limited proximity to green space. Also available annually at the LSOA level.
These indicators highlight both the quantity and accessibility of green spaces, helping identify areas where new provision or improvements may be needed to support health and wellbeing.
How to measure Access to Greenspace
If you’re just starting out, start with Bronze first. The result of a Bronze measurement is just an estimate, but requires the least effort; whereas Silver and Gold give more accurate results but require more effort.
Each level has an effort to accuracy indicator, choose the one that’s right for you.
Bronze
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
Monetised social value: Multiply the proportion of your participants you expect to gain easy access to greenspace by £3,600
Silver
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
Monetised social value: Consider what shifts you might observe in people’s attitudes towards the new park. Therefore you can calculate an estimate of the overall shift, by applying the appropriate WELLBY values.
Gold
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
Monetised social value: Measure actual amounts of difference that access to greenspace makes to people’s lives
Gold+
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
At the Gold+ level, you are building on your Gold value calculation by assessing the value against the counterfactual, or ‘what would have happened anyway’.
| Value Type: | Master outcome |
What's this?
This is the type of value. Some values are outcomes, which means many different interventions might lead to them, others are specific interventions that have a set value. |
|---|---|---|
| UN SDG Categories: |
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What's this?
The UN Sustainable Development Goals are global goals adopted in 2015 for all signed up nations to achieve for us to have a sustainable global future by 2030. There are 17 Goals that address the global challenges we face, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice. The Goals are all interconnected, and in order to leave no one behind, it is important that we achieve them all by 2030. |
| 2020 Social Value Models: |
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What's this?
PPN 06/20 Taking account of social value in the award of central government contracts introduced the Central Government Social Value Model in 2020 which all Central Government contracting authorities must use in their in scope procurements. It consists of 5 themes, 8 policy outcomes, and 24 Model Award Criteria which outline key priority areas to achieve more social value. |
| 2025 Social Value Models: |
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What's this?
PPN 06/20 was superseded by PPN 002 Taking account of social value in the award of contracts, published in February 2025 in line with the Royal assent of the Procurement Act 2023. This PPN outlined the requirement to use the new 2025 Central Government Social Value Model. The Model applies to all Central Government procurements commencing on or after 1 October 2025 under the Procurement Act 2023. Out of scope procurements can choose to apply the model but are not required to do so. The updated model is structured around 5 government missions and 8 outcomes, with 17 Model Award Criteria, and a mandatory minimum 10% weighting of the total evaluation score assigned to social value. |
Evidence
Measure Up focuses on empowering you to numerically measure the impact you’re having. We recommend that numeric reports are backed up with stories and other types of evidence to help illustrate, in human terms, the impact that’s being made on individuals.
We recommend seeing consent from one or more participants in your intervention to collect and tell their story. This should include a little background on the participant, a summing up of life before the intervention, the human impact of the intervention, and the longer term (if known) impact on the person’s life outside of, and after, the intervention.
Providing photographs, audio recordings, video interviews or even artefacts from the intervention (for example, writing, paintings, music, etc from creative interventions) can add more colour, and convey the emotional impact of interventions more directly.
In some cases it’s appropriate to anonymise or abbreviate the personal information of case study participants. No story should be published or shared without the recorded consent of the individual(s) it concerns. Individuals continue to own the rights to their stories and if they request you stop sharing the story or making it available online you should do so promptly and without need for justification.
Feedback
Measure Up is an open, collaborative and transparent. If you have any suggestions or feedback on our pragmatic, recommended approach to measuring Life Satisfaction please get in touch so we can share and discuss this at our next Advisory Group meeting.
More help
We want to empower anyone to perform and improve their impact measurement – without needing a degree in economics.
If you need any more help, or just someone to do the legwork for you we can help signpost you to software, training and consultancy to help you get to grips with the impact you’re having.
