Brunel’s grounds team has won a national seal of quality for keeping campus looking lush, grassy and neat with its fifth consecutive Green Flag Award.
The team notched up its highest ever score in the competition, which recognises and rewards the country’s best-kept parks and green spaces and this year marks its silver jubilee.
Brunel is one of only 23 universities rated among the 2,127 winners, joining the ranks of tourist attractions as diverse as the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, Woodhouse Park in Peterlee and London’s Chiswick Old Cemetery.
“Brunel retaining its Green Flag Award is an even greater achievement this year,” said Commercial Services’ James Budkiewicz, “particularly given the challenges over the last 12 months.
“While many other teams were furloughed or told to work from home, the grounds team stayed on campus throughout the pandemic. After all, nature stops for no one, and had grounds downed tools, its likely we would have returned to a campus jungle.
“Huge congratulations to the team and to security and site services who helped.”
Nearly six in 10 people (59%) said being able to use a quality park or green space helped improve their mental health, reveals research by Keep Britain Tidy, the environmental charity that runs the contest. Ninety-three per cent of people think parks and green spaces are important to their local community, and 94% said such places are good for people’s physical health.
Keep Britain Tidy Chief Executive Allison Ogden-Newton OBE said: “At a time when parks have been at the heart of every community across the country it is perhaps not surprising that 95% of the public thinks that their local parks and green spaces need to be protected.”
To celebrate this year’s announcement, Keep Britain Tidy asked buildings and monuments around the UK to #GoGreenForParks to support these special spaces. Landmarks including Alexandra Palace and Bradford Town Hall will ‘go green’ tonight.
Read the Brunel grounds team blog