Wirksworth and district

Hub England & Wales

Number of people in group:

22

Active participants in last year:

400

They are approximate!

Group started:

2009

Paid roles?

No

Legal Structure:

Unconstituted (a group of individuals)

How active is your group?

Very Active

Live Projects:

• Community Growing
• Nature
• Community hub or activities
• Festivals, fairs or events
• Building local networks
• Share, Repair or reuse
• Energy
• Transport

The Wirksworth initiative started in late 2009 , with public meetings held in spring 2010. It incorporated the earlier group Sustainable Wirksworth. In 2023 we  changed our name to Grassroots Wirksworth.

We have a core group and are linking with people who keep us in touch with groups that started life as part of Transition Wirksworth. These include the Community Growers, the Community Land Trust, and the Rubbish (waste and recycling) Group. We also have links to other local organisations and businesses that share our ethos, via the Sustainability Hub.

The role of the core group is mostly to spread awareness of climate change issues and sustainability, to provide a point of focus for people wanting to take positive action, and to support new groups / activities that emerge. The core group puts on a seasonal Environmental Film Festival with the independent Northern Light Cinema to inform and inspire people into conversation, friendship building and action. We are part of the group exploring safer roads for pedestrians, and we are working with Discover Wirksworth to encourage visitors to holiday more sustainably.

The core group supports new initiatives such as the Repair Cafe which started in September 2022. The Repair Cafe meets monthly and repairs a wide range of items.

The most active groups are the Growers, who created a community garden on a site offered by the railway, coordinate a garden sharing project, are looking for land for allotments and have built links with the local junior school and the local care home for older people.

The Rubbish (Waste and Recycling) Group, have been campaigning to reduce plastic bag usage locally, selling cloth bags through local shops, putting on Give or Take events, decorating a Christmas tree with ornaments made from waste materials and making contact with local schools.

The Community Land Trust  is looking to develop low energy housing and meanwhile is offering energy leakage surveys for houses, and sharing the experience of people who have built / retrofitted lower energy buildings.

We also have links with Stoney Wood, a local community woodland which used to be a limestone quarry, and Wilder Wirksworth which is rewilding verges and a field and leading walks.

The main points of contact are two members of the Core Group.