Creating Greener, Stronger Neighbourhoods

Developing Green Community Hubs across the North of England

Green Community Hubs

Green Community Hubs are popping up all over the North of England. In a collaborative three-year project funded by The National Lottery Community Fund, five Groundwork Trusts (South and North Tyneside, North East and Cumbria, Cheshire Lancashire and Merseyside, Greater Manchester, and Yorkshire) are developing online support at NorthernNetwork.org as well as in person hubs. 

For Yorkshire’s first year in 2024, we are working at Lady Pit Lane Allotments, Beeston, Leeds and Spires, Sheffield. These locations will run weekly free nature based activities open to the local community such as willow weaving, allotment food growing sessions, polytunnel re-skin, mosaic making, bio blitz and fruit tree pruning. The project aims at creating stronger more resilient communities, and encouraging them to enjoy nature and spend time outdoors.

Communities will be at the heart of the decision-making – sharing their ideas and aspirations for their local area to decide the activities that could be offered at the hubs, including volunteering opportunities, educational workshops, community gardening and wellbeing sessions, food growing and conservation projects. The Hubs will utilise existing assets providing a broad range of services that build resilience and improve health outcomes in the local community.

Find out more at northernnetwork.org

Allotments

We’ve worked for more than a decade down at Lady Pit lane Allotments in Beeston with various groups from those with learning difficulties, those requiring mental health support, job seekers, and those who were shielding during COVID who were newly accessing the outside world again.

Participants can expect to grow and eat fruit and veg from seeds, weed, propogate (use twigs and offcuts to make new plants), as well as build wooden herb boxes, play snooker, make scarecrows, repurpose plastic bottles into a new greenhouse, accompanied by cups of tea, of course! All food grown is shared by the group or given to food projects locally. 

The Blue Influencers Scheme is a groundbreaking project, to support young people living in areas of deprivation in river, coastal and estuary locations, by empowering them to tackle environmental and climate issues.​

The Ernest Cook Trust funds 22 Host Organisations to employ “Blue Mentors”. Each Blue Mentor’s role is to enable young people to lead the way as ‘Blue Influencers’ on environmental social action projects.​

The £2.25 million scheme is being co-funded by The Ernest Cook Trust and the #iwill Fund and will run for three years. Its ambition is to engage more than 4,000 young people as ‘Blue Influencers’, as well as over 15,000 community volunteers across England. ​

Yorkshire’s Blue Mentor is Jack Hurrell of Groundwork Yorkshire, who has been recruiting Blue Influencers and mentoring them to create impactful environmental projects in their schools and communities.​

Each application for a project grant is considered by The Ernest Cook Trust’s Youth Advisory Board, a group of driven and passionate 14 to 20-year-olds who recommend applications for funding to the Trust’s Board of Trustees.​

Community Resilience Hub

Are you looking to grow the resilience of your community? Through training and tailored support, Communities Prepared equips communities nationwide with the knowledge and confidence to prepare for, respond to, and recover from a range of emergencies, from flooding and severe weather incidents to pandemics.

Whether you’re already active and aware of these topics or are new to resilience training, you can join us for free as a community member, a volunteer coordinator or an individual professional by following the link

Supported Internship Programme

Our Supported Internship programme is a structured study programme based primarily in the horticulture work place. We strive to enable young people with a HCAP to achieve sustainable paid employment.

Learn new skills and study a range of qualifications, including:

• NOCN Level 1 Horticulture
• NOCN Level 3 Employability
• Entry Level 1 and 2 English and Maths

Gain confidence, learn to manage time effectively, work in a team and deal with stress and conflict in a proactive way.

The programme lasts for an academic year and is focused on the individual and their specific learning needs.