Hastings and St Leonards parks are named as some of the best with Green Flag Award

Friends of Alexandra Park and The Landscape Group staff together with Murray Davidson the council's environment and natural resources manager, Cllr Richard Street, Cllr Warren Davies, David Henry - The Landscape Group

Hastings Country Park, Alexandra Park and St Leonards Gardens are among a record-breaking 1,686 parks and green spaces in the country that have received the prestigious award.

Councillor Warren Davies, Hastings Borough Council’s lead member for environment, said: “We are absolutely delighted to receive the Green Flag accolade for excellence again this year as a testament to the quality of not one, but three parks in Hastings, a truly exceptional achievement.

“Our green spaces are essential to happy, healthy communities and are fundamental to our quality of life - we are so proud that residents and visitors are benefitting from parks of the very highest quality.

“Our thanks must go to our grounds maintenance contractors, The Landscape Group for their tireless efforts in making our parks and gardens look great and the park managers, staff and volunteers for their hard work and dedication which has helped to create these fantastic places for us all to enjoy.”

Paul Todd, international Green Flag award scheme manager, said: “We are delighted to be celebrating another record-breaking year for the Green Flag Award scheme, especially as we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the awards.

“All the flags flying this year are a testament to the efforts of the thousands of men and women, both staff and volunteers, who work tirelessly to maintain the high standards demanded by the Green Flag Award.”

The Green Flag Award is the benchmark national standard for publicly accessible parks and green spaces in the UK.

The scheme was set up in 1996 to recognise and reward green spaces in England and Wales that met the laid down high standards.

The scheme was originally run by volunteers from its founding in the 1990s.

It was then sponsored by the government and run by the Civic Trust till the latter went into administration in 2009.

Since then it has been managed by a consortium of Keep Britain Tidy, the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers, and the charity Greenspace.

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