Brent Council defended its work in parks and open spaces after a report showed it is among the bottom third of local authorities in a ‘Good Parks for London’ report.

The report, carried out by Parks for London and covering several areas such as public satisfaction, awards for quality and work with the community and nature, placed Brent 26th out of 33 London boroughs in 2019.

But the council said its own system of working did not match up with the criteria outlined by the researchers and that it was satisfied with its performance.

Cllr Krupa Sheth, who is responsible for the environment at Brent Council, said: “We’re very proud of our award-winning parks and the initiatives we’ve delivered in the last year.

“The Parks for London results rank green spaces on a whole host of criteria, and these don’t all tally with our priorities or the operational model we have in place in Brent.

“What we are committed to is continuously seeking to making our green spaces work better for residents, so we will reflect on the Parks for London results when developing our approach to parks management in the coming year.”

A report presented to Brent Council’s resources and public realm scrutiny committee explained that each authority has different approaches when it comes to managing their parks.

It noted that this is partially down to the varying sizes and number of parks in each borough as well as different management systems such as using several entrances.

Committee chairman Cllr Matt Kelcher suggested that, despite this, the borough should be aiming to be in the top third when the benchmark results are next released.

In the 2019 report, Southwark was considered to have the best parks in the capital, followed by Havering and Lewisham.

In north-west London, Harrow was ranked sixth, Hillingdon 14th, Ealing 16th and Barnet 25th.

Newham was the lowest-scoring borough, with Sutton and Redbridge making up the bottom three.

Tony Leach, chief executive of Parks for London, said: “The Good Parks for London report is influencing boroughs to share and adopt good practice and raise quality standards across London.

“It is gratifying to see that as boroughs collaborate more between departments, for example with health and planning, that many have increased their scores since last year.

“We want to celebrate their successes and all the many good things that are being delivered by boroughs and other organisations that manage London’s green infrastructure.”