Accessibility and allocation of public parks and gardens in England and Wales: A COVID-19 social distancing perspective.

Visiting parks and gardens supports physical and mental health. We quantified access to public parks and gardens in urban areas of England and Wales, and the potential for park crowdedness during periods of high use. We combined data from the Office for National Statistics and Ordnance Survey to quantify (i) the number of parks within 500 and 1,000 metres of urban postcodes (i.e., availability), (ii) the distance of postcodes to the nearest park (i.e., accessibility), and (iii) per-capita space in each park for people living within 1,000m. We examined variability by city and share of flats. Around 25.4 million people (~87%) can access public parks or gardens within a ten-minute walk, while 3.8 million residents (~13%) live farther away; of these 21% are children and 13% are elderly. Areas with a higher share of flats on average are closer to a park but people living in these areas visit parks that are potentially overcrowded during periods of high use. Such disparity in urban areas of England and Wales becomes particularly evident during COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown when local parks, the only available out-of-home space option, hinder social distancing requirements. Cities aiming to facilitate social distancing while keeping public green spaces safe might require implementing measures such as dedicated park times for different age groups or entry allocation systems that, combined with smartphone apps or drones, can monitor and manage the total number of people using the park.

Introduction

Public parks and gardens, being the most visited form of green space among urban residents in the UK [1], contribute to wellbeing by providing opportunities to experience nature, engage in physical activity, and feel a sense of social belonging and develop social interactions [2-7]. There are an increasing number of studies that explore health benefits of parks using various measures based on spatial proximity [8-10], density (number of parks within a certain distance from home or any other population boundary) [9, 11, 12], crowdedness [13, 14], quality and facilities [15-17], or a combination of the above [18].

The lockdown periods during the COVID-19 pandemic have made the crucial role of natural spaces even more evident and exposed the limited resources in our cities that led to diverse policy and advocacy responses in the UK and other parts of the world, ranging from park closures to limiting park opening times and reducing services such as park benches, children’s play areas, and sports facilities [19, 20]. Research has showed that extended periods of confinement at home reduce physical activity, particularly among people with lower socio-economic status [21], and increase the risk of depression, anxiety, insomnia, and self-harm [22, 23]. Concerns were also raised that such unintended consequences disproportionately affected children and disadvantaged communities living in overcrowded homes and inner-city flats without access to outdoor space or private gardens [24-27].

While there have been studies on access and provision of public parks and gardens at city-level in the UK, there is a knowledge gap at national level with a focus on within- and between-city variabilities. Here, we describe the availability, accessibility, and provision of publicly owned parks and gardens in urban areas in England and Wales, and consider policy options for their allocation and use.

Methods

Data sources

Our analysis focused on urban areas in England and the three most populous cities in Wales (i.e., Cardiff, Swansea, and Newport). We focused on urban areas because those living in rural areas typically have private gardens and/or access to the countryside. The urban areas in England were defined using the Built-up Areas boundaries from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) [28] and in Wales using the boundary data provided by local authorities.

We used age-stratified ONS mid-2018 population estimates at Lower Super Output Areas (LSOA), a census dissemination unit which represents homogeneous neighbourhoods of 1,500 residents on average. LSOA-level population was matched to residential postcodes centroids (representing on average 15 households in urban areas) using postcode headcount information from the 2011 UK Census as weights. We aggregated populations into five age categories: children and young adolescents (0–16 years), young adults (16–30 years), middle-aged adults (31–50 years and 51–70 years), and the elderly (70+ years). We obtained information on type of accommodation (residential flat versus house) from the 2011 UK Census for LSOAs. We identified public parks and gardens using the OS MasterMap Open Greenspace Layer (version October 2019), which provides information on the location, physical boundary, and function of publicly accessible green space.

Statistical analysis

We used a geographic information system (GIS) to conduct the following analyses: First, we quantified the availability of public green space, defined as total number of parks and gardens within 500 and 1,000 metres circular buffers around all residential postcodes (referred to as availability). The 500 and 1,000 metres buffer sizes approximately represent five and ten minutes of walking for an adult, respectively [29]. Second, we quantified the accessibility of green space, measured by spatial proximity, using the (Euclidean) distance between the postcode centroid and the nearest public park or garden. Third, we quantified the per-capita space available in each public park and garden by dividing its total area by the population size residing within 1,000 metres. Since park usage data were not available, we estimated the population that might be expected in public parks and gardens based on the following scenarios:

Scenario A: population size was weighted based on the number of parks within a 1,000 metres circular buffer around each postcode. This scenario assumes that all public parks within the buffer have an equal chance of being visited [13]. For example, if a given postcode had three parks available within its 1,000 metres buffer, 33% of population was assigned to each park.

Scenario B: We used a simplified spatial interaction model to calculate population weights based on the probability of visiting a given park or garden within 1,000 meters of each postcode. This scenario assumes that parks that are larger and closer to a given urban postcode are more likely to be visited [18]. Mathematically, the weight function is expressed as

where population weights (W) are defined as the probability that people living at postcode i visits park j, A is the area of park j, d is the distance between postcode i and park j, and α is the distance decay parameter, which based on previous studies was assumed equal to 2.0 [30, 31]. We used the per-capita space measure as an indicator of the possible crowdedness of the park or garden, which is also useful in evaluating the feasibility of urban parks and gardens to facilitate social distancing.

Finally, we examined accessibility and mean per-capita space of parks and gardens in relation to the proportion of homes in an LSOA that are flats, where a higher proportion of flats indicates greater reliance on public parks and gardens for green space access [24]. We conducted the analyses in ArcMap v.10.5.1 (ESRI Ltd, Redlands, California) and R Statistical Software (Version 1.2.5001).

Results

Our analysis covered 537,713 urban postcodes in England and Wales, with a total population of over 29 million. Of these, ~6.2 million (21%) were children and young adolescents (0–16 years), ~5.9 million (20%) young adults (16–30 years), ~14.3 million (49%) middle-aged adults (31–50 years and 51–70 years), and 2.9 million (10%) 70+ years of age. There were a total of 4,155 public parks and gardens in urban areas in England and Wales.

Availability and accessibility of public parks and gardens

There is on average one (standard deviation [SD] 1.2) public park and garden available within 500 metres of the urban postcodes in England and Wales, and three (SD 2.8) public parks and garden within 1,000 metres. Forty-three percent of postcodes in England and Wales do not have any public green space within 500 metres, 34% have one, and 23% have two or more. Fourteen percent and 22% of postcodes have either no park or one park, respectively, within 1,000 metres whereas 63% of postcodes have at least two parks and gardens.

Urban residents in England and Wales, on average, live 557 metres away from their closest park or garden. Ten percent of the population (2.8 million) has at least one park in the immediate vicinity of their residence (< 100 metres), 59% (14.4 million) within a 500 metres, 28% (8.3 million) between 500 to 1,000 metres, and 13% (3.8 million) live more than 1,000 metres from a public park or garden.

There are substantial differences in distance to public green space between cities (Fig 1). Bristol, Liverpool, and London have the best accessibility with median distances of 281 metres, 284 metres, and 322 metres, respectively. By comparison, Newport (median distance of 673 metres), Swansea (611 metres), Coventry (522 metres), and Leeds (518 metres) are cities with the least accessibility. In terms of the percentage of population, ~5% of people in Swansea and Coventry and 7% in Leeds and Manchester have a public park or garden in the immediate vicinity (< 100 metres) of their residence compared with 15% in Bristol, 14% in Liverpool and 12% in London (Fig 2). The former four cities also have the highest percentages of population with a park located more than 1,000 metres from their residence, ranging from 15% in Manchester to 30% in Swansea, compared with just 0.2% in Bristol, 1% in Liverpool, and 4% in London.

Fig 1

Median distance between home postcode and the nearest public park or garden in Lower Super Output Areas (LSOA) for 14 cities in England and Wales.

Contains National Statistics data © Crown copyright and database right 2020. Contains OS data © Crown copyright (2020). Data available under the UK Open Government Licence v3.

Fig 2

Percent of population in categories of distance to the nearest park or garden for 14 cities in England and Wales.

Per-capita space of public parks and gardens

Fig 3 shows the distribution of per-capita green space for all people (25.4 million) living within 1,000 metres of public parks and gardens in urban areas of England and Wales. To evaluate whether this available green space allows maintaining a distance of at least two metres for social distancing, a minimum space of four square meters per person is required if people were spread evenly within the park. If people concentrate in certain areas of the park, such as paths, the requirement is higher. At the extreme, if urban residents were all to visit their closest park at the same time, 50% of parks (2,071) would be unable to maintain the minimum social distancing space of four square metres per person, even if the entire park space was used. In an alternative scenario, where urban residents choice of parks depends on the size of park and its distance to their home (i.e., scenario B as described in Statistical Analysis), an additional 19% of parks and gardens (69% total) would enable social distancing as long as people were equally spread out in the park.

Fig 3

Distribution of space per person for public parks and garden in England and Wales for a) scenario A (all parks within 1,000 meters have an equal chance of being visited), and b) scenario B (larger and closer parks to home are more likely to be visited).

For over 7 million of urbanites in England and Wales who have access to parks or gardens within 1,000 metres from their homes, there is a risk of going to a park (if all residents use the park simultaneously) that is potentially overcrowded with less than four square meter of green space per person (Fig 4). Of this group, 21% are children and young adolescents, and 9% are elderly. Around 3.8 million people do not have park or garden within 1,000 metres of their homes, of which 21% and 13% are younger than 16 years and 70 years and older, respectively.

Fig 4

Number of people in each category of park space availability and age group.

Numbers refer to the people living within 1,000 metres of any park or garden.

LSOAs with a higher share of flats generally have a better accessibility to parks based on distance (Fig 5a), though parks in these LSOAs are more likely to be overcrowded if used by all residents (Fig 5b). For example, residents in the highest quantile of share of flats can reach a park or garden within 278 metres (the median) but the median space available in all parks in their LSOA is as small as 4.9 square metres per person, which is 2.5 times smaller than the per-capita space available in the lowest quantile of share of flats.

Fig 5

a) Median distance (m) to the nearest park or garden by quintiles of share of flats in Lower Super Output Area; and b) Median per-capita space (m2) by share of flats in Lower Super Output Area (quantiles), where 1 is the smallest proportion of flats and 5 is the highest proportion of flats.

In Fig 5b, the y-axis was delimited to 0 m2 and 50 m2 for presentation purposes.

Discussion

Cities in England and Wales have green space assets that provide opportunities for outdoor exercise and play, but there are bottlenecks for some urbanites. Specifically, 13% of residents live more than 1,000 metres (~ten minutes walk) from their nearest public park or garden. Among those with a good access to local parks, 24% of residents use parks that are potentially overcrowded with as little as four square meter of green space per person. This makes the park experience less than desirable and, during a pandemic, unsafe to maintain social distancing.

The main strength of our study is to provide data on green space availability and accessibility as a national assessment tool to identify areas with high demand for public green space. Additionally, it can inform options to keep public parks and gardens open and safe during lockdown periods. A limitation of our work is that we did not consider other spaces (e.g. national parks and woodlands) although these are usually not located in urban areas. Further, our analysis could provide more detailed insights on crowding if there was information on time preferences for exercise and play, and attributes of parks beyond their amenities and services [17]. Since the data source for public parks and gardens provide information only on the form and function of green space, we did not subtracted inaccessible areas such as bodies of water and monuments from the total park area.

How to keep public parks and gardens accessible and safe during COVID-19 pandemic?

Public parks and gardens provide urban residents of all ages with access to outdoor green space and a place to exercise, which can reduce stress and improve mental and physical health [32, 33]. As social distancing measures are prolonged in the absence of a vaccine or widespread test and contact tracing, local and national governments will have to balance the access to outdoor green space with reducing the risk of transmission, particularly in densely populated areas. The Paris model of closing all parks reduces social contact in public spaces [34], but can have serious mental and physical health implications. Further, these more extreme measures may cause other outdoor spaces to become more crowded, risk engendering non-compliance with social distancing regulations, and can create tensions among residents and with officials that enforce the regulations.

An alternative policy is restricting access to high-risk areas (e.g., playgrounds and sports facilities) while keeping trails and open spaces accessible in a way that maintains social distancing. For example, parks can limit the number of people accessing based on park size and population density in the surrounding area [35]. Dedicated park access times for different age groups or different activities could serve to both maintain social distancing and facilitate access for more vulnerable groups. Examples include specific times for families and the elderly and for walkers versus runners and cyclists. Alternatively, officials could manage utilisation, either based on weekly data to inform the community so that they can better spread their visits over the park’s opening times, or dynamically using smartphone or drone data to monitor crowdedness and communicate this information to residents.

Finally, given the extreme nature of the pandemic as a social and public health crisis, cities should complement public parks and gardens with other resources to lessen the adverse impacts of lockdown and social distancing. In Boston, Minneapolis and Oakland in United States, cities closed streets to vehicles to increase space for pedestrian and cyclists [36]. Similarly, in the UK, some local authorities in London, Manchester, and Brighton are restricting driving on certain roads to separate walkers from runners and cyclists [37]. Coordinating such an initiative would allow for longer routes and safer activities, provide alternative spaces for different activities (e.g., adult cyclists versus playing/running children), and potentially reduce congestion in parks. Opening up school green land, private parkland and golf courses to the public can provide additional space for exercising while maintaining social distancing [27]. For example, Dulwich College and Dulwich Prep in London have opened up sections of their land to the public.

While a great deal of our attention in the early months of the pandemic is on supressing or stopping transmission, the strategies for achieving this can have detrimental impacts on health and wellbeing. Public parks and gardens are an important public health asset that can effectively help urban population to sustain their health and wellbeing, and should actively and effectively be used to do so.

28 Jul 2020

PONE-D-20-13318

Accessibility and allocation of public parks and gardens during COVID-19 social distancing in England and Wales

PLOS ONE

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Reviewer #1: Access to green space is important for physical and mental health at all times, and I appreciate that you have chosen to address this issue. No doubt it is even more important during the restrictions imposed because of the Covid-19 epidemic, but I am concerned that your framing suggests the issue is important only under recent circumstances. Your title and introduction do not merely imply, but explicitly state that the observations are specific to the Covid-19 epidemic, which is not the case. Your title would be more accurate if it were shortened to Accessibility and allocation of public parks and gardens in England and Wales, since these observations are unaffected by the pandemic. You can certainly mention that the pandemic makes the question even more exigent than usual, but you don’t want to suggest that it will go away with the lockdown. The first sentence of your abstract reinforces this framing: “Visiting parks and gardens may attenuate the adverse physical and mental health impacts of 16 social distancing implemented to reduce the spread of COVID-19.” In fact visiting parks and gardens may attenuate the adverse impacts of all psycho-social stressors and one might say that lack of absence to green space is a stressor under any circumstances. The first sentence of your introduction continues this misleading framing.

That said, I have some clarifying questions and I also see some substantial limitations to this that need greater acknowledgment and I think you need to make a more substantive case for your procedures.

First, we already know that some people have greater access to open space than others. What specifically is this telling us that is useful for policy making or public health practice?

Now, some more specific comments.

Line 79: You need to explain what Lower Super Output Area means, especially as you return to the concept which will be unfamiliar to most readers. International readers will need to know what British postal codes are, since 15 households is considerably smaller than the granularity of postal codes elsewhere. Readers will also need to know how this database protects privacy, since out of 15 households, with the precise age data that is apparently available, individuals could evidently be readily identified. Again, in the U.S. census blocks vary widely but may have several hundred inhabitants, and any cells with fewer than 5 are suppressed.

Line 96: What is the typical geographic extent of a postcode? This will inform us as to the accuracy of using the centroids.

Line 100 et seq. This is very confusing. Did you consider the size of the parks at all? Assigning 33% of the population to one of three available parks makes no sense if they are of different sizes. You write: “minimum space of four square meters per person is required to maintain a distance of at least two metres if people were spread evenly within the park. If people concentrate in certain areas of the park, such as paths, the requirement is higher.” Well yes, but you do not explain whether you used the size of the parks in your calculations or if so how. Furthermore, regardless of whether people are concentrated on walkways, the available space may be reduced by bodies of water, shrubbery or garden beds, monuments, etc. How did you compute the actual space available per person, if at all? And if not, how are your calculations of possible overcrowding at all valid? There is basic information missing here.

Line 148: There appears to be at least one word missing. Also, you need to explain what a LSOA is.

Line 155 et seq: neither of your hypotheticals -- everybody visiting at the same time, or people evenly spaced – will ever be met. So what is the use of these calculations? (And again, it isn’t clear to me that you have actually measured the space available to begin with.)

Line 198: Well yes but you do not have any of this information.

So in sum, I need to better understand what you did, and you need to make a better case for its usefulness. I hope you can do so because this is certainly a very important issue that doesn’t get sufficient attention.

Reviewer #2: The topic of open space in the form of parks is interesting and of course relevant, especially in light of covid. That said, I wish the framing of the study were more general, not focused on covid specifically but the availability of and access to parks and other open space. There are several places where the focus on covid limits the generalizability and may date the findings (such as stay-at-home-orders expiring in May). Instead I think a broader focus on the health benefits of open spaces would be better, and some of the situations raised in the discussion used to frame this study.

With regard to the methods, this is a nice compilation of data. Parks are indeed and important opportunities for open space, but I wonder about those people especially in the fringes of the cities have other opportunities to walk to open areas. Perhaps this could account for why some of the smaller cities seem more problematic than London, especially Newport and Coventry. The spacial maps appear to support this. This does not appear to be the case in Liverpool and Nottingham, although this may be because there are outdoor places along the fringes of these cities. Although I would ideally like this factor of alternative open spaces included and analyzed, at the very least this could be acknowledged as a limitation to this study.

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8 Oct 2020

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Response to Reviewer:

Reviewer #1

R1.1 Access to green space is important for physical and mental health at all times, and I appreciate that you have chosen to address this issue. No doubt it is even more important during the restrictions imposed because of the Covid-19 epidemic, but I am concerned that your framing suggests the issue is important only under recent circumstances. Your title and introduction do not merely imply, but explicitly state that the observations are specific to the Covid-19 epidemic, which is not the case. Your title would be more accurate if it were shortened to Accessibility and allocation of public parks and gardens in England and Wales, since these observations are unaffected by the pandemic. You can certainly mention that the pandemic makes the question even more exigent than usual, but you don’t want to suggest that it will go away with the lockdown. The first sentence of your abstract reinforces this framing: “Visiting parks and gardens may attenuate the adverse physical and mental health impacts of 16 social distancing implemented to reduce the spread of COVID-19.” In fact visiting parks and gardens may attenuate the adverse impacts of all psycho-social stressors and one might say that lack of absence to green space is a stressor under any circumstances. The first sentence of your introduction continues this misleading framing.

RR1.1 We fully agree with the reviewer that access to parks is important under all circumstances, not just during COVID-19 restrictions. We followed the reviewer’s advice and shortened the title to ‘Accessibility and allocation of public parks and gardens in England and Wales’ but made it clear that we are assessing this through the COVID-19 lens by adding ‘a COVID-19 social distancing perspective’. We have made structural changes throughout the paper to better reflect the importance of parks and gardens at all times, and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

R1.2 That said, I have some clarifying questions and I also see some substantial limitations to this that need greater acknowledgment and I think you need to make a more substantive case for your procedures. First, we already know that some people have greater access to open space than others. What specifically is this telling us that is useful for policy making or public health practice?

RR1.2 From a public health perspective, the number of parks, their distance to residential postcodes, and per-capita green space provided to local residents represent not only spatial accessibility to parks but also indicate disparities in the quality of park visits. The covid-19 restrictions made it more clear that parks are not a “good to have” option but a necessity to physical and mental health. The importance of this kind of analysis is clear from the fact that during lockdown people were bound to homes and the only outside-home options were parks and gardens. In addition, when lockdown measures were announced, concerns were raised regarding the need to accompany lockdown requirements with measures to create access to parks. Another advantage is that our study at a national level enabled us to perform comparable analyses over a large number of urban areas and observe patterns in different cities. From a policy-making perspective, our findings lay the foundation to inform future needs for alternative public green space such as pocket parks or even the need for new parks in some neighbourhoods, especially those with higher share of flats who are most in need of public green space.

R1.3 Line 79: You need to explain what Lower Super Output Area means, especially as you return to the concept which will be unfamiliar to most readers. International readers will need to know what British postal codes are, since 15 households is considerably smaller than the granularity of postal codes elsewhere. Readers will also need to know how this database protects privacy, since out of 15 households, with the precise age data that is apparently available, individuals could evidently be readily identified. Again, in the U.S. census blocks vary widely but may have several hundred inhabitants, and any cells with fewer than 5 are suppressed.

RR1.3 We added explanations regarding the postcode and LSOA geography in the UK in the text as follows: ‘LSOAs […] a census dissemination unit which represents homogeneous neighbourhoods of 1,500 residents on average’ and ‘…residential postcode centroids (representing on average 15 households in urban areas…’. The UK postcode system is different from that of other countries such as the US in that postcodes do not represent an area but a collection of postal delivery points (i.e. addresses) which are geographically represented by a postcode centroid (x,y coordinate). Postcode headcount information which was used here to disaggregate the LSOA level population estimates comes from the national census and gives the total number of people sharing the same postcode on that date of the census. No data suppression is applied to postcode headcount by the data provider, Office for National Statistics.

R1.4 Line 96: What is the typical geographic extent of a postcode? This will inform us as to the accuracy of using the centroids.

RR1.4 As outlined in response 1.3, postcodes are the midpoint (x,y location) of a collection of postal delivery points (~15 addresses) sharing the same postcode.

R1.5 Line 100 et seq. This is very confusing. Did you consider the size of the parks at all? Assigning 33% of the population to one of three available parks makes no sense if they are of different sizes. You write: “minimum space of four square meters per person is required to maintain a distance of at least two metres if people were spread evenly within the park. If people concentrate in certain areas of the park, such as paths, the requirement is higher.” Well yes, but you do not explain whether you used the size of the parks in your calculations or if so how. Furthermore, regardless of whether people are concentrated on walkways, the available space may be reduced by bodies of water, shrubbery or garden beds, monuments, etc. How did you compute the actual space available per person, if at all? And if not, how are your calculations of possible overcrowding at all valid? There is basic information missing here.

RR1.5 We did use the size of park in calculating the space available but not as a determinant of preference to use. To our knowledge there is no empirical evidence on this. In other words, we assumed that all parks have the same chance of being visited. We have now added citations that used this approach to estimate available green space. In the revised version, we took into account how the size of a park and the distance to a residential postcode might affect the probability of visiting a given park. We calculated population weights assuming that people tend to visit larger parks that are closer to their home. Relevant citations have been also added to the revised version. Regarding Reviewers concern on the actual available green space in parks, the park data provided information on green space with the function of park and garden as a whole. Currently, we are not aware of any data source containing parks details and facilities (such as bodies of waters and monuments) at a national scale. This lack of data was acknowledged as a limitation in the revised version

R1.6 Line 148: There appears to be at least one word missing. Also, you need to explain what a LSOA is.

RR1.6 We have revised as suggested and include an explanation of LSOAs ‘LSOAs […] a census dissemination unit which represents homogeneous neighbourhoods of 1,500 residents on average’.

R1.7 Line 155 et seq: neither of your hypotheticals -- everybody visiting at the same time, or people evenly spaced – will ever be met. So what is the use of these calculations? (And again, it isn’t clear to me that you have actually measured the space available to begin with.)

RR1.7 In the absence of park usage data, we had to make assumption on how to assign populations to parks to be able to estimate the provision of green space. Previous studies showed that green space characteristics such as size, quality, facilities, and distance contribute to usage preferences. Therefore, we have refined our methods based on an alternative assumption that residents divide between competing parks within their ~10 min walk depending on the size of park and the distance to their homes. Data collection on frequency of visits and high-use times will definitely improve the accuracy of results; however, it goes beyond the purpose of this research.

R1.8 Line 198: Well yes but you do not have any of this information. So in sum, I need to better understand what you did, and you need to make a better case for its usefulness. I hope you can do so because this is certainly a very important issue that doesn’t get sufficient attention.

RR1.8 Although this information is not currently available, we believe that our findings provide valuable insight on the current accessibility and provision of parks and gardens in the UK and Wales. We acknowledged as a limitation that due to unavailability of detailed data on attributes of parks such as facilities, cafes, etc. we were unable to calculate the exact amount of usable park space.

Reviewer #2:

R2.1 The topic of open space in the form of parks is interesting and of course relevant, especially in light of covid. That said, I wish the framing of the study were more general, not focused on covid specifically but the availability of and access to parks and other open space. There are several places where the focus on covid limits the generalizability and may date the findings (such as stay-at-home-orders expiring in May). Instead I think a broader focus on the health benefits of open spaces would be better, and some of the situations raised in the discussion used to frame this study.

RR.2.1 As highlighted by the Reviewer, access to parks is important under all circumstances but became more noticeable during COVID-19 restrictions. To reflect the reviewer’s comment (also in response to Reviewer #1) we changed the title to ‘Accessibility and allocation of public parks and gardens in England and Wales’ and made it clear that we are assessing this through the COVID-19 lens by adding ‘a COVID-19 social distancing perspective’. We have made structural changes throughout the paper to better reflect the importance of parks and gardens at all times, and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

R2.2 With regard to the methods, this is a nice compilation of data. Parks are indeed and important opportunities for open space, but I wonder about those people especially in the fringes of the cities have other opportunities to walk to open areas. Perhaps this could account for why some of the smaller cities seem more problematic than London, especially Newport and Coventry. The spacial maps appear to support this. This does not appear to be the case in Liverpool and Nottingham, although this may be because there are outdoor places along the fringes of these cities. Although I would ideally like this factor of alternative open spaces included and analyzed, at the very least this could be acknowledged as a limitation to this study.

RR2.2 The difference of access to green space between small and large cities is related to the differences in cities’ morphology and distribution of public parks. For example, Nottingham is mostly characterised by urban zones with public parks distributed across the city while Newport is characterised by a mixed morphology of urban- rural areas, with urban areas and parks in the city centre. We have pointed out in line 216 that we just considered public parks and gardens and not other open spaces such as woodlands or national parks.

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9 Oct 2020

Accessibility and allocation of public parks and gardens in England and Wales: a COVID-19 social distancing perspective

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16 Oct 2020

PONE-D-20-13318R1

Accessibility and allocation of public parks and gardens in England and Wales: a COVID-19 social distancing perspective

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