King Edward Park awarded Green Flag (again)

We are excited to announce that Hāwera’s King Edward Park has once again been awarded the prestigious international Green Flag Award.

The Green Flag Award is the international mark of a quality park or green space, judged by green space-expert volunteers, across 27 criteria. These criteria include horticultural standards, cleanliness, sustainability, community involvement, accessibility and providing a warm welcome.

In total this year, 24 parks in New Zealand have made the grade to be awarded a Green Flag. We are incredibly proud of the hard work the team at King Edward Park have put in to make this a reality and look forward to celebrating this achievement with our local community.

King Edward Park was first a recipient of this award in 2019.

South Taranaki District Council Parks Curator David Bruce says he's thrilled with the Award.

"Winning the Award the first time was a real thrill as it showed that the standards we had set ourselves were appropriate to the Green Flag criteria," he says. "The assessment this year reaffirms those standards and also acknowledges some areas of improvements that enhance both King Edward Park and the experience of the Park’s visitors."

The Green Flag Award scheme was launched in 1997 and is managed in England by Keep Britain Tidy. This year’s results mark a record breaking 2,221 Green Flag Award winners worldwide. Flags fly in sites across the UK, Republic of Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, the USA, United Arab Emirates, as well as Australia and New Zealand.

Recreation Aotearoa Parks and Open Spaces Manager, Annette Richards, said: “It’s fantastic to see so many of our parks investing time into creating spaces where our communities can connect and find joy.

“It is significant for us to be able to recognise these parks with this award. But it’s about so much more than winning an award. It’s about embarking on a journey with all the people that make providing quality horticultural standards, cleanliness, sustainability, access, community involvement and a warm welcome for our visitors and locals possible,” she says.

To learn more about the Green Flag Award programme, you can visit their website www.greenflagaward.org

King Edward Park is South Taranaki’s premiere Park and also has a five-star rating with the New Zealand Gardens Trust.