The Old Moat study is a precise demonstration that entry into a public-looking place may be socially inhibited without a locked gate. Fifteen older people in Greater Manchester explored small green spaces through walk-along interviews and photo elicitation. Some spaces were perceived as belonging to other people or as poorly maintained, and larger parks remained more attractive destinations. The sample was small and specific, but the research produced a category that an inventory of green cover cannot generate: perceived entitlement to use. A patch of green can be territorially present, publicly designated and functionally unavailable to someone who reads its social signals as exclusion. Combining photographs with situated speech exposes how meanings attach to particular sites rather than to an abstract provision category. Health psychology, urban sociology and planning thereby become connected through a question of implicit ownership. A route can approach a place without the walker regarding it as theirs to enter.
