The project started with £500 and 20 volunteers and early activities included an organised bulb planting event with 1,000 bulbs planted at Number 28 and other areas of the estate. A weekly gardening club began, attracting local residents to help manage the garden and to share and learn new skill, from cookery to making hanging baskets.
Local children have been keen to take part too, largely thanks to the creation of the community garden at Hexham East First School, a project linked to Number 28.
In a new linked project, a group is looking into starting another community garden in the extensive grounds of Hexham Middle School.
Green Spaces in Hexham East was joint winner of the Social and Community category of the North Action for Market Towns Awards.
This project provides a community bus for residents in the Risboroughs and adjacent villages who are without public transport and for whom access to shops, leisure and medical facilities is difficult. The service also helps
to bring more people into the town, which benefits local businesses.
A company limited by guarantee with six unpaid trustees was set up and registered as a charity in March 2010 to buy and operate the new community bus. Leaflets and talks to local groups helped to recruit a management committee of volunteers and thirty volunteer drivers.
The 14-seater minibus arrived in May 2010 and was painted in its Risborough Area Community Bus livery. Timetables were drawn up, printed and delivered to every household in the town.
Once funding and the necessary licenses were in place, a daily scheduled service began operating to the residential areas of Princes Risborough, Monks Risborough and Longwick with a further service to the village of Loosley Row two days a week.
The scheduled service began on 19 July 2010. From just 70 passengers in the first week of operation the bus now regularly carries more than 325 passengers each week. When not on its scheduled service, small groups use the bus for leisure activities. Risborough Area Community Bus won the Social and Community category of the South East Action for Market Towns Awards.
Proposals for a community orchard was a key part of the town plan Advance Swaffham. A Big Lottery Fund grant of £9,000 administered by Swaffham Town Council has allowed a group of volunteers to prepare the site, plant fruit trees, bulbs and other appropriate plants to create a haven for wildlife and an attractive place for people to visit.
The hard work began in October 2010 when up to 65 volunteers of all ages worked tirelessly throughout the winter months to get the site ready for the planting of 200 two-year-old trees.
The core group of volunteers, having come together initially for the orchard project, has now become a properly constituted community group supported by Advance Swaffham Action.
It now plans to increase the amount of open space and recreation facilities in the town, which were significantly under-developed for a community of this size.
The project name Swaefas Swale is made up of the Old English name of the people who gave their name to Swaffham (Swaefas’ ham) and the Middle English East
STRENGTHENING SOCIETY 21
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