Park Conflicts

On Friday the 26th of January 2007 we went on a field trip to Horton Country Park in Epsom. A country park is an area designated for people to visit and enjoy recreation in a countryside environment. It is not a national park; a national park is protected by law to protect the nature and stop things being built on it.

In the past the country park was a medieval manor in the Northwest of the parish of Epsom. In the 1890’s the estate was brought by the London County Council. They then built a series of large psychiatric hospitals, two of them having their own farm. In 1973 it was purchased by Epsom and Ewell Borough County council and became Horton Country Park. The park is managed by a team of park rangers, who do all the work and maintain the park.

The park is used by: cyclists, horse riders, dog walkers, elderly people, families, schools and animals. This is why it must be managed, with that many people there becomes lots of litter and other problems. We went to find out about environmental conflicts and management techniques.

The place with the best path was at the car park as it had tarmac and was hardly broken up. The place with the worst path was a long the edge of the park. This was because there was no tarmac or paving, just mud. The mud was all wet and could not be walked on; you could not walk on this path at all.

The place with the least unnatural noise was where we started off, in the woods. All you could hear was the birds. The place with the most unnatural noise was at the car park as lots of cars were coming and going; so all you could her was the cars.

The smelliest place was a long the edge of the park as many people had thrown their rubbish and waste over their fences which made the place smell of rubbish. The place with the most natural smell was in the woods, as you could smell the grass and the trees.

The place with the most litter was a long the edge of the river as many people had thrown old beer cans and crisp packets in there. The place with the least litter was in the woods.