• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.13-31
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• 2019

Green spaces are recognised for the benefits. They bring to the quality of people's lives. However, since the 1980s there has been a general increase in poorly-managed green spaces. In an attempt to address this issue, green space policy has changed its focus on green space management through the gradual introduction of green space evaluation tools, such as the Green Flag Award (GFA). The GFA, as an established green space evaluation tool in the UK, reflects a shift in policy drivers of green spaces management. However, there is a lack of research investigating the contextualisation between a wide range of policy contexts and such green space evaluation tools (the GFA in this study). The aims of this study are therefore to explore the development of green space evaluation since the late 1990s, with respect to the growth of the GFA and its impact on other evaluation tools across the UK and several countries. To address the aims, this study employs in-depth literature reviews on UK green space policy mainly conducted by government. In addition, case studies are presented, focusing on the GFA and independent green space evaluation tools intrinsically derived from the GFA in the UK's cities and Nordic countries. Results show that based on the awareness of the severity of declining standards of green spaces, newly emerging policy arrangements have been adopted to address negative issues, which affect the standard of green spaces such as the transfer of responsibility for green space management, the implementation of Compulsory Competitive Tendering and ongoing budget cuts. Significantly, the GFA's indicators reflect the emerging changes of economic and social contexts associated with green spaces management where, in particular, the prospect of continuous budget cuts, which encourages communities to become involved in green space management. The GFA has widely contributed to leading such UK's cities and other countries to be able to create their independent green space evaluation tools in different approaches based on stakeholders' (mainly community) involvement in the decision-making process of green space evaluation. In conclusion, this study implies that successful green space evaluation tools do embody the value of green spaces and address drivers of emerging green space management with correspondence to the context of policy arrangements. Importantly, stakeholders have an opportunity to be involved in a partnership in the decision-making process through some green space evaluation tools. It is hoped that for well-managed green spaces this study will contribute valuable knowledge to our existing understanding of green space management in an era of austerity.