BIG WildSpace for Big Society in Action
27/07/2011We are celebrating 10 years of our successful Community-owned WildSpace scheme.
Green Light Trust's Community-owned WildSpace Scheme was started in 2001 with a unique funding partnership from B&Q, Forestry Commission and Suffolk County Council. Over the last 10 years the Scheme has been a phenomenal success. Working in partnership with local communities, Green Light has helped to establish nearly 60 projects throughout the East of England.
Through our environmentally led approach, the Community-owned WildSpace Scheme has directly empowered at least 30,000 individuals in 58 communities to enhance, enjoy and value their local environment; and encouraged social responsibility by enabling individuals and organisations to get involved in social action on their doorsteps.
In 2011, these principles are right at the heart of the Government's vision for the Big Society. During a visit to one of the Scheme's projects in December 2010, Richard Benyon MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Natural Environment and Fisheries, commented: "This is the Big Society in action and I am pleased to lend my support to this initiative."
Some of our major achievements of the Scheme to date include:
- 88% of projects have been successful and are now sustainable;
- over 8,000 children from 59 schools have taken part in a Seed to Tree programme, learning about the importance of natural resources and the environment;
- more than 3,000 local people annually have come together to support the projects by contributing their time, energy and local knowledge;
- over 17,000 volunteer hours are contributed to projects annually;
- more than 100,000 trees, shrubs have been planted together with local native wildflowers;
- over 80 hectares of green spaces are being managed by local communities
- 9 BAP (Biodiversity Action Plan) of threatened species re-introduced
We see the keys to these achievements are:
- Green Light's role as a facilitator and enabler, helping local communities to set up and run their projects;
- Providing a suite of tried and tested resources backed up by practical advice and training to ensure projects get off to a flying start;
- Creating partnerships between local people, schools, businesses, local and national government bodies and a range of funders working together to achieve benefits for local communities.
On 3rd November at The House of Commons we are launching a new national initiative to challenge each constituency MP to have a WildSpace on their patch and Ian Cheshire of Kingfisher plc is our key note speaker.
We are proposing a practical partnership solution to put the spotlight on how Community, Business and Government can work together for the benefit of the wider public for generations to come.