South of England

NEWS: Groundwork launches three-year vision for communities

Groundwork has today launched a three-year strategy, ‘Groundwork 2023’, detailing how it will support communities to combat the climate and nature emergency, improve their health and wellbeing and gain access to learning and work opportunities.

The strategy is launched at a time when:

  • 89% of community groups say their work is needed more than ever, but more than half say it has got harder for them to operate in the last ten years.
  • 75% of people say they feel unable to influence decisions about what happens in their local area.
  • Nearly half of young people say they feel they don’t belong to their neighbourhood.
  • 2.69 million people do not live within a ten minute walk of a green space. Those who are at greatest risk of poor physical and mental health are more likely to miss out on the benefits of green space.
  • Around half a million young people were ‘economically inactive’ – not in learning or employment and not looking for work.
  • One in ten households in England is experiencing fuel poverty, rising to almost one in five for ethnic minority households.
  • 76% of adults say they are concerned about climate change.
  • 40% of young people admit to feeling ‘overwhelmed’ by the climate crisis.
  • 90% of SMEs said being sustainable was important for their business but more than half said they were finding it difficult to take action.

Groundwork 2023 sets out the charity’s ambition to become a significant, radical, national force for driving change in attitudes, behaviours, places and prospects in the local communities that need it most.  The strategy commits Groundwork to achieving the following by 2023:

  • Mobilise 75,000 days of voluntary action to combat the climate and nature emergency
  • Connect 50,000 people with their community and nature to improve wellbeing
  • Support 20,000 people into accessing learning and work

Download Groundwork 2023 strategy

To introduce the strategy in more detail, Groundwork hosted a LinkedIn takeover on Wednesday 29 July with Groundwork staff and Trustees including Groundwork’s national chief executive, Graham Duxbury answering questions.

Graham Duxbury, said:

Now more than ever it’s vital that we set out our long-term direction and Groundwork’s mission to support practical community action on poverty and the environment is more relevant than ever.

We enjoyed having a dialogue with people so they could ask questions and have the opportunity to find out more about Groundwork and our goals. It was an interesting conversation where we aimed to find out how we could all work together to make real, positive change in our communities.


Notes to Editor

For further information, please contact media@groundwork.org.uk or call 07793844627.