Save our green! The local battle which exposed the war against Britain’s green space

One of the 12 ‘principles’ of the government’s National Planning Policy Framework is that planning should be ‘genuinely plan-led, empowering local people to shape their surroundings.’ This is how that empowerment works in reality.

Stephanie and Adam Sutton live on the Montagu Estate in Newcastle upon Tyne. Stephanie grew up on the estate, is 37 years old and works at accountancy firm Sage. Adam, her husband, is 29, works at Carluccio’s and says he ‘married into Montagu’. Their house looks onto a 0.67-hectare rectangle of grass which is surrounded on all sides by houses. Newcastle City Council calls it ‘open space’. Locals call it their green.

Montagu Estate is not a rich area. The green reflects that. It’s not like the green in richer Newcastle suburbs like mine, or in nice London boroughs. There’s graffiti on a telephone pole and it’s not attractively landscaped. It is used though. People walk their dogs on it. People socialise on it. Despite there being no lines marked out and it having a slope, kids use the two goalposts regularly – ‘Every day without fail,’ says Adam, ‘even when it’s raining.’