THE sun’s out and the summer symphony of lawn-mowers and hedge clippers is at full volume.

Whether it’s a landed estate or a postage stamp outside the back door, people love their gardens and rightly so.

They’re the place where, even if it’s just for half-an-hour at the weekend, the bricks and concrete of the city fade away and the real world – the natural world – comes into focus.

Gardens are our private spaces.

But just as important are those public spaces where people and whole communities come together to relax, walk, converse or be entertained.

How those public spaces look, whether they are inviting and well-maintained or dull and foreboding, speaks volumes about a town or city.

Middlesbrough takes a pride in its public spaces.

There are new places like Centre Square and mima and historic venues like Stewart Park, where earlier this week we finished a £9.4 million improvement and renovation project.

We officially re-launched the park on its 80th birthday earlier this week – there’ll be a spectacular open day event tomorrow.

As I looked around at the re-launch, I said Stewart Park had stood the test of time.

By that I meant that it embodied a part of the town’s history but wasn’t a relic or a museum piece. It was still an important part of people’s lives.

Moreover, it would continue to be an integral part of the Middlesbrough scene for many years to come.

Stewart Park is a great place to watch the seasons change.

It, too, has changed in the last 80 years, much like the town around it. It will continue to evolve and be a constant in the daily life of Middlesbrough.

When I went to Stewart Park as a youngster, I always thought of it as part of the Victorian era.

I didn’t know that it was gifted to the town in the 1920s by Thomas Dormand Stewart, a councillor and one of the great men of Middlesbrough’s early days.

Neither did I know that it was the home of one of the town’s founders Henry Bolckow or that, alongside his business partner Thomas Vaughan, he was buried just across the road in St Cuthbert’s churchyard in Marton.

It was years later that I saw their memorials and helped ensure that they were fittingly restored.

Once again, it was about making sure that another piece of Middlesbrough’s history stood the test of time.

Just like Bolckow, Vaughan and Stewart, local councils have a duty to look after and enhance public open spaces and thereby give something back to the people.

It is a job that can’t be left to charity or chance. Even in desperately hard times, we have to find the money to give people places they can enjoy and feel pride in.

We restored Stewart Park with the kind of funding mix that’s usual these days – the Big Lottery, Heritage Lottery, the council, Middlesbrough College and the Healthy Towns and Playbuilder initiatives all contributed.

The end result is worth seeing.

So why not come along tomorrow and see Stewart Park restored.

Those jobs in the garden can wait another day, surely. I am sure you’ll be impressed.

What’s more you’ll want to go there again and play your part in Middlesbrough’s future.