Mark Pickup, Parks Development Officer at Hyndburn Borough Council has single-handedly created an online tool, in his spare time – to help people discover Hyndburn’s parks, outdoor spaces and walk-ways.
With green flag parks, local nature reserves, walk ways and woodlands to explore there is something for everyone in Hyndburn.
All you need to do is put your postcode into the webpage and it will tell you the places to visit and how far they are from you. Follow this link to our dedicated webpage for parks and open spaces.
As far as we know, Hyndburn are the only local authority to have this tool available! Mark explains how he came up with the idea during his day-to-day work:
“I spoke to a group of parents who were meeting up at a local play area and they had no idea about some of the best places to visit in our borough! The purpose is to make sure people are aware about all the great places to explore and also create a sense of pride in just how much we have to offer here.”
“It was definitely a labour of love. We have about 25 locations in Hyndburn that were included, many of them hidden gems and co-ordinating this took a lot of time, but I did it as a hobby and really enjoyed the process.”
“The website works by taking someone’s postcode and converting this to a global position (X & Y). A list of play area global positions (X & Y) are held on a spreadsheet and the 2 are compared to provide information about the nearest play area to the postcode and also approximate distances to the play areas in our Borough.”
Alongside parks and playgrounds, other local features are included on the website are: walks ways, and facilities such as bowling greens, ball courts and local nature reserves.