Builderscrap.com are looking at the defra 2009 Public attitudes and behaviours towards the environment survey.

The survey also included a number of measures to capture how often people used green spaces and the importance they placed on these in their lives. Around half (48%) of respondents said they used public gardens, parks, commons and other green spaces at least once a week with 10% saying they used these six or seven days a week. A quarter said that they used them either once a fortnight or once a month (26% of all respondents) with the same proportion reporting that they used them less than once a month or never (26%).
A large majority of respondents indicated that having public gardens, parks, commons and other green spaces nearby was important to them. Just 5% of respondents did not think that this was important to them (with the majority of these people saying it was “not very” rather than “not at all” important to them). Table 41 shows the results for these questions for both the current and 2007 Defra survey.

DEFRA September 2009

While the figures appear similar for each response about usage of green spaces, in total the proportion who claimed to use green spaces once a week or more had decreased from 54% in 2007 to 48% in 2009.

Respondents rated the importance of having green spaces nearby very highly and the total proportion rating this as very or fairly important had increased from 91% of respondents in 2007 to 95% in 2009. The biggest difference was in the proportion of respondents who said that having such spaces nearby was very important to them (up from 65% in 2007 to 74% in 2009). There was little variation in response by the type of area the respondent lived in – respondents living in villages were marginally more likely to say that having public gardens, parks, commons and other green spaces was very important to them than those living in cities and towns (80% compared with 75%).
In follow-up to these questions, respondents were asked to pick the three most important reasons for spending time in public gardens, parks, commons and other green spaces (from a list of eight options). As one of these top three reasons, the most frequently cited reason was fresh air (by 57% of respondents). This was followed by open space (44%), plants and wildlife (35%), scenery (30%), tranquillity (26%) and leisure opportunities (26%). There was little variation in response by type of area lived in, although respondents living in villages were more likely to cite plants and wildlife (46%) and scenery (42%) as important reasons for spending time in public gardens, parks and commons than those living in cities and towns (34% and 28% respectively).
An equivalent question was asked on the 2007 Defra omnibus survey to ascertain the most important reasons for respondents visiting open countryside – the top reason given at that time was also fresh air (mentioned by 61% of respondents), followed by scenery (56%), tranquillity (45%), open space (39%), and plants and wildlife (38%) which are the same reasons as those most frequently cited in 2009 though in a different order. Leisure opportunities were cited as a reason for visiting open countryside by around one in ten (11%) respondents.

Public attitudes and behaviours towards the environment – tracker survey DEFRA September 2009