Pocket Parks to the Rescue? Tackling Social Isolation and Loneliness through Spatial Policy

This research will contribute to the applied social science interest in new forms of small urban parks and spaces by investigating their capacities to deliver high-priority social policy interventions around social isolation and loneliness. It will provide new understandings of the policy and strategic rationales underlying the extension and take-up of the policies and the experience of diverse communities and individuals in a range of urban settings as they come to design, develop and use the new space. It aims to think critically about the extent to which the policy interest in small urban parks can respond to the reported decline of 'community' as a marker of increasing social isolation and loneliness.

The policy context for the project is the extension of the "Pocket Park" programme by the UK Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (HCLG), which will fund a new generation of innovative ultra-local public spaces designed, in part, to tackle social isolation and loneliness.

Utilising a case-study approach, this project will follow three successful applicants to the "Pocket Parks Plus" scheme, with a three-fold integrated methodology being applied. First, semi-structured interviews with key community stakeholders. Second, mobile interviews with users of the space and third, a qualitative face-to-face residential survey with non-users in areas surrounding the parks. Analysis of the data will advance the theorisation of social and spatial policies for addressing isolation and loneliness; informing recommendations and advice to policy communities and urban planners who are seeking spatial solutions in response to a 21st century problem.