Determinants of Public Open Spaces Utilisation in Lafia Town, Nasarawa State, Nigeria

Underutilisation of Public Open Spaces (POSs) in Lafia town has shown that some spaces are being encroached upon to the extent that some are illegally acquired and converted to other uses, which has continued to threaten end users and residents of the adjoining land uses. Therefore, the objective of this paper was to investigate the determinants of POS utilisation in Lafia Town, Nigeria. The study adopted a survey research design approach to obtain divergent views on the phenomenon of the determinants of POS. The population of the study was the end users of the POS; the frame was 176,407, with a sample size of 399 based on the Yamane Taro formula. The convenience sampling technique was employed in selecting the end users, with a 99.5% return rate of questionnaires. The data collected was analysed using multiple linear regressions with the aid of SPSS (Windows Version 23). The results revealed that the availability of facilities has greater influence with means scores of 4.41, and standard deviations of 0.904. The overall mean score was 3.17 which revealed that the variables independently influenced POSs utilisation in the study area. The results also revealed that physical and seasonal variations were stronger determinants influencing POS utilisation, accounting for 67.6% of the responses. The Study recommended multi-stakeholder partnerships in the management of POS that is flexible to accommodate temporary activities during the rainy season, with a view to more effective utilisation in cities. The study contributed in isolating the determinants that have more significant influence on POSs utilisation.