Green community groups get the green light for taking climate action

A dozen ‘green’ groups across Bury have been successful in winning grants from Bury Council’s Let’s Do It! Community Climate Action fund.

They now have the ‘green’ light to undertake a wide range of projects, including climate change awareness and education, installation of solar panels, improving biodiversity, and natural flood management.

The council invited community groups to bid for a total of £100,000 to support their own climate action projects. Some 19 bids were received and, after being evaluated by the Climate Action Team and elected members, 12 were successful.

The 12 groups, and their aims, are:

• Creative Living Centre, Prestwich: to revitalise and replant the garden and allotment; train and deploy volunteers to cook plant-based meals using surplus food from FairShare.

• Enterprise Centre (Kirklees Valley Nature Trail): to install solar panels to help provide energy to their centre, and showcase through other workshops and events on site.

• Asian Development Association of Bury (ADAB): supporting 200 Bury East residents and BAME communities to reduce carbon, run an interactive online course and workshop on climate change awareness, and promote water protection and ecosystems with Bury Wildlife Trust.

• Bury Climate Action Group & Small Things Creative Projects CIC: run a digital climate hub, plus community climate ‘pop ups’ and workshops in each of the six townships.

• Friends of Clarence Park: create a community organic food growing project, and offer plant-based cookery classes in the Green café. Education on shopping without plastic and using natural cleaning products; developing local walk maps; setting up a bike library; and holding a Green Day event in the summer to promote environmental action.

• Sunnywood Project, Tottington: having guided hikes and runs aimed at different age groups, combined with social action on climate change, i.e. tree planting, litter picking, wildflower spreading and removing invasive species.

• Friends of Chesham Woods: work on two tributaries of the Barn Brook, introducing wildflowers for biodiversity and natural flood management

• Prestwich Environmental Forum: looking to attain ‘plastic free’ status by raising awareness, liaising with 12 small businesses to commit to pledge to becoming plastic free, and recruiting 30 community group allies.

• Greenmount Primary School Parent Association: reusing school uniforms, with an area where people can donate old uniform that is then repurposed for other children.

• Phillips Park Management CIC: installing solar panels on the ‘Barn’.

• Whitefield Environmental Forum: increase tree coverage in Whitefield and encouraging residents and businesses to engage and volunteer.

• Lancashire Wildlife Trust: increasing their number of volunteers, general conservation work including reducing invasive species, improving paths and completing ecological surveys.

Councillor Kevin Peel, deputy cabinet member for the environment, said: “It’s so important that we all take action now to make our society green and carbon-neutral. Our children, and their children, deserve to grow up in a clean and healthy world where resources are not wasted.

“Tackling climate change may seem like a huge task, but it’s all about ‘thinking global, acting local’ – we can all make a difference by taking action where we live.

“I congratulate the 12 groups who have won this funding, and many of the projects will allow and encourage local people to volunteer and get involved too. We will support them wherever we can, and I can’t wait to see the results.”

ENDS

Press release issued: 10 February 2022.