in the city (est £15m), external funding sources such as the lottery (est £21m), monies raised from the sale of some green space (est £41m) and from the council's core budget for Bristol Parks services (est £10m).
The achievement of the strategy will be geared to the pace at which capital can be generated; this is why disposal of some low value, marginal land is essential if its ambitious quality improvements are to be realised. The council's usual policy is that all receipts from land disposals should go into a 'central capital pot' but in this case 70% will be ring fenced for reinvestment back into parks and green spaces. In addition to capital funding, there will need to be an increase of revenue budgets for improved standards of grounds maintenance, and for the cyclical repair of features when damaged or worn out to be delivered by the creation of a 'life cycle costs fund'.
Grounds Maintenance: The council recognises that improving grounds maintenance is a critical issue, reinforced by the response from public consultation. Effective and efficient grounds maintenance is vital to deliver the objectives of this strategy. As well as conventional ways to provide the service, such as via contracts and managing the services directly, the strategy will be looking at the option for community management of some individual spaces.
Area Green Space Plans: The strategy document is not the end of the decision making process or to community involvement in what happens at a local level. We will develop Area Green Space Plans in consultation with local people, applying the standards locally and making specific proposals to improve parks in the area. These will be coordinated with other council initiatives which may affect neighbourhoods and communities.
Design Guide: A design guide has been prepared to help planners, developers and parks managers.
About People: The strategy also includes policies covering -Boosting Participation and Increasing Use, Tackling key barriers to use, Consultation and involvement, Developing and supporting community groups, Working with partners, Education and outreach, Events and Festivals, Health and exercise, Good communication and information planning. Monitoring and Review: The Parks and Green Space Strategy will be monitored and reviewed based on headline performance indicators, managed via the Bristol Parks Service Delivery Plan which is reviewed annually. PIs will focus on monitoring customer satisfaction, service quality and 'bottom line' numbers of park visits and visitors.
The strategy will be reviewed by the end of the first five years - with the current version applying from 1st April 2008 to end March 2013.
Peter Wilkinson
Bristol City Council, Bristol
E-mail: peter.wilkinson@bristol.gov.uk
Wencke REICHEL
Public involvement in planning and realisation process - Blüherpark in Dresden
The city of Dresden has experienced severe cuts over the last century. These political, cultural and economical changes left their marks in the cityscape and thus influenced its shape, uses and users. The Blüherpark's surroundings ranged from rural landscape outside the city's fortress walls to densely built part of town near the centre up to a loosely built blocks of flats from the 1950s and with spread public facilities and huge parts seemingly unplanned open space. The gap between its prominent central location, varied cultural history and at the same time its "lost" look created an area only known by people as the location of the German Hygiene Museum. This diverse identity was the motive to unveil the ground walls of the palace Secundogeniture and its historical axis.
1 Blüherpark Dresden
The city of Dresden has experienced severe cuts over the last century. These political, cultural and economical changes left their marks in the cityscape and thus influenced its shape, uses and users.
The character of the Blüherpark changed from:
-	a noblemen's pleasure garden 17th cent.
-	the residence of the second borne prince of the Wettin Dynastie 18th/19th cent.
-	into a public park with playing facilities and a herb garden
The parks surroundings ranged from rural landscape outside the city's fortress walls to densely built part of town near the centre up to a loosely built blocks of flats from the 1950s and with spread public facilities and huge parts seemingly unplanned open space.
The gap between its prominent central location, varied cultural history and at the same time its "lost" look created an area only known by people as the location of the German Hygiene Museum.
This diverse identity was the motive to unveil the ground walls of the palace Secundogeniture and its historical axis.
There is one habit of Dresden citizens: they don't like changes and therefore critically watched the closure of the preliminary use as a herb garden. At this point GreenKeys started an intensive communication process with citizens and local actors at Dresden's Pilot Project Blüherpark.
2 Public involvement in planning and realisation process of Blüherpark Dresden
2.1 Guided visits of the building site
Guided visits took place throughout the excavating and building phase. The intention was to let them take part in the constructional process and findings that involved monument preservation and were quite tedious and time consuming.
2.4 WALK of GREEN - common event of all GreenKeys city partners
Making local publicity is one thing - making publicity on EU scale, and yet being local, is another. Therefore we Pinnacle PR Consultants invited to one of our GreenKeys Workshops. A result of their advice was the common idea to create a "Walk of Green" a set of tiles on the site of each of the twelve pilot projects showing symbolic motives of them. The idea was born and communicated via intranet and from then on a busy search for motives and the manner of creating them started - the result is a graphic overview which shows the diversity of partners and project involved - and hopefully gives a glance of the European idea.
Figure 1: Guided visit in June 2007 (source: lOER, 2007).
People attracted were residents, mainly elderly, from nearby, students with a professional focus and people with insider knowledge, e.g. as a witness to history or from a professional perspective.
2.2 Call for historic images/fotos from before 1945
A press release with a call for historic images or memories paved the way to peoples' hearts and at the same time announced a Citizens informative meeting. The request to people to search in their memories enabled them to go beyond the previously closed herb garden and remember past uses of the Blüher Park. This brought up the interest in history that Dresden citizens are quite fond to. As one of the feedback we received a documentation of fountain of the park from a fountain-enthusiast, who, by doing that, supported the efforts to restore a central fountain again.
2.3 Citizens informative meeting
This meeting helped, next to the guided tours, to gap a tedious period of studies and decision taking primarily regarding monument preservation. Taking place indoors, it helped communicating the Idea of GreenKeys Project as well as the history of the Blüherpark and the desire of the Municipality to unveil this again. An external moderation helped to gather and step by step dissolve critical views on changing the site. Nearby residents, contemporary witnesses, local stakeholders and young professional came.
Figure 2: Blüherpark, July 2006 (source: lOER, 2006).
2.5 Graphic competition for the Blüherparks typical motive
The application of the idea "Walk of Green" was found easily: a drawing circle that has ist studio just nearby the park was asked, whether it would make up a graphic competition on finding the "typical" motive of the Blüherpark - that certainly required some imagination and historical research - both was done with great enthusiasm and widely exceeded our expectations. This engagement did not just deliver the suitable motive but brought out a contemporary witness' bulletin of her playing in the park as a child! Not to mention the warm relation with Ms Kaiser, the teacher of the circle who supported a creative approach to the park and its history.
2.6 German/English brochure of GreenKeys and Dresden's pilot project
The Blüherpark Brochure can be seen as a summary of all these activities. The special plus was that with that brochure the public and political support shall be safeguarded. Therefore a number of personal interviews with important local stakeholders was made and their statements are reflected within this brochure.
Wencke Reichel, Landscape Architect
Municipality of Dresden, Department of Urban Green and Waste Management, Dresden E-mail: Wreichel@dresden.de