Rethinking the operating system for urban parks: A Canterbury case study : A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Master of Applied Science at Lincoln University

Abstract

Urban parks play a valuable role in the health and wellbeing of local residents and have emerging broader benefits as buffers to climate change and biodiversity loss. The difficulty is that, as financially-challenged local authorities re-prioritise their activities to focus on core services, the current operating system for these parks may no longer be fit for purpose. Previous studies have identified the impacts of reduced funding on urban parks and there are various recent studies on alternative approaches for councils, including handing responsibility for parks over to communities. However, there no studies examining the overarching operating system for New Zealand parks in local authority settings. To fill this gap, this case study comprised of two sequential interviews with managers and key staff at local councils in Canterbury, New Zealand (n=6) and used four parks management systems requirements identified by Aly and Dimitrijevic (2022) as a basis for analysis. A key finding was that being able to collaborate outside of the immediate parks team with a greater focus on better defining and pursuing the public value of urban parks may be key to securing resources, especially when other competing council functions can articulate this more clearly.