Malcolms on the grumble

I posted the text below on a site for countryside managers and thought to my self, Blog it as well.

 

 

I was at a birthday do last night for the head ranger of a site the other side of Cambridge to where I used to work. Well it was supposed to be his birthday do but it partly turned into a goodbye and thank you do for him and the other two full time staff employed there for the support they have received during there recent struggle to remain employed.

Cambridge Past Present and Future who amongst other things manage Wandlebury Country Park and Coton Countryside Reserve have agreed a new management plan which sees the future site specific staffing more geared to visitors over all there properties rather than practical work on one or two. As a result of this three full time staff who carried out the bulk of the practical work as well as visitor liaison etc etc on those sites are to be made redundant on 30th March 2015. In their place there will be one new full time post and a number of part time posts all of which will be paid at a lower hourly rate plus increasing numbers of volunteers. The new arrangement will allow them to be more flexible and have staff present when visitor demand is highest. Practical work will be mainly carried out by contractors. The rest of the work of Cambridge PPF will go on as usual. Two additional outdoor based part time employees who primarily worked at busy times have also decided to leave.

Having been made aware of the ins and outs of this saga since it started a few months ago, and having seen how other visitor facilities close by are now managed I have to say I become more and more sceptical of the future of parks of all types and sizes and countryside areas as a whole. Increasingly I am hearing people state that the future of the environment whether physically or legally is in a more parlous state than it has been for decades. 

I suspect we are close to a tipping point. All employers of park and countryside staff whether local authority, NGO or charity are in search of the mighty pound having had to cut corners, staff and anything else that can go except the baby and the bath water. Volunteers, who I am not knocking, are becoming the bedrock of sites existence across the board. There use encouraged by managers who see them as a vital resource to maintain and increase visitor numbers and income generation.

Sites are suffering physically through lack of management or indeed increased management in some areas to get more people in, but to my eye the cracks are beginning to show. The more you do the more you need to maintain, the more you need volunteers because there are no more employed staff members on the horizon.

Apart from showing I am becoming a grumbly old man and some would say when have I not been, what does this illustrate. 

 

More and more those still employed in parks and countryside as well as visitors to those sites need to be banging the drum far and wide helped by the rest of us who remember better times. The environment is important in so many ways, each of us must do our best to tell and show people this.

After all its no good the baby sitting in his bath water if he hasn't got a duck to play with.