MBE Awards for park legends, Dr Stewart Harding and Paul Todd

It is not often that you come across people who have the commitment, passion and professionalism for what they do and manage to maintain this their whole professional lives, but in the world of parks, we are lucky enough to do so. What is rare though is to see these people so deservedly recognised and rewarded. Darren Share MBE and Chris Worman MBE have and continue to be supportive of the Parks Management Association, and have earned their MBE’s.

We now have 2 further individuals who have been rewarded for their long term work within our sector and many of you will have come across them.

Dr Stewart Harding has received an MBE for services to heritage and park conservation, through his role as co-founder of Parks Agency, and director of GreenSpace. If you were one of the lucky recipients of lottery funding in the early days from the Urban Parks Programme from 1996, you will have come across this parks obsessive who started the whole thing off. Since leaving the Heritage Lottery Fund, Stewart has campaigned tirelessly on the benefit of public parks and his work with David Lambert, also of the Parks Agency has been inspirational.

Paul Todd – another huge name in the world of parks, has managed Green Flag since its beginnings, making it what it is today, an international standard. Every year, we look forward to our Green Flag applications and the judging rounds, and this has grown under Paul’s fantastic leadership to what it is now. Paul Todd is Green Flag and again a worthy recipient of an MBE in the King’s birthday honours.

Both these awards follow on from an MBE for Jenifer White, Landscape Advisor for Historic England, who has recently announced she is stepping down from her role here. If you have worked within historic parks or landscape conservation, you too will have come across Jenifer, and her unparalleled knowledge on historic landscapes and their conservation.

We at the Parks Management Association congratulate Stewart, Paul and Jenifer for their honours and thank them for all their amazing support and work of many many years.

If you know someone or think there are others out there who are worthy of nomination, you can do so by the link below. We need more Stewart’s, Jenifer’s, Paul’s, Darren’s and Christopher’s in the sector. They are beacons for what we do and help highlight the importance of our role. Get nominating.