Village SOS - Bringing new life to UK villages

 
As a successful bider for the BBC and Big Lottery Fund's Village SOS project, we are focussed on creating a country park on the site of the old Newstead and Annesley pit-tips that will be an asset for the community and incubate social enterprises.

 
The Village SOS scheme is a fantastic opportunity for six UK villages with sustainable project ideas to work with the Big Lottery Fund and BBC One to bring new life to their community. The six selected villages will receive funding of up to £400,000 each from the Big Lottery Fund and each village will be teamed up with a Village Champion. These will be enterprising individuals who will work with the successful villages to make their ideas happen.

Their stories will be followed for a major primetime series for BBC One in spring 2011.

What are we going to do? - Village SOS has three aims:

All our work as a community in Newstead looks to address these aims and we know we can deliver quality activities and ideas to make them happen. To do this and to progress with the Village SOS scheme we have developed a partnership called Newstead Enterprise which will be registered as a company to oversee the projects. This partnership is built around Future Newstead (the village organisation taking the parish plan forward), Rural Community Action Nottinghamshire (who we bought the land through) and the CAST Project.

 
The Newstead Enterprise project in Newstead, Nottinghamshire, will transform the 220-acre former colliery spoil heaps at Newstead into a thriving, multi-use community space and Country Park with a difference. The park will house a farm to work with local schools and the site will be developed by providing training for young people and adults. Since the colliery closed in 1987 the area has naturally matured into a regionally significant haven for wildlife. We aim to preserve this while welcoming the community and others to benefit from a whole range of activities and ideas.

Got any ideas yourself that you’d like to see happen or want to get involved as a volunteer? Please get in touch and get on our mail update list. We’d love other people to come forward and become a part of the community.

You may have attended some of the many consultation events we have been running for the Newstead Village SOS Scheme campaign. This is to get funding and support for the development of the country park at Newstead. If you want to view the business plan and capital delivery plan, including the eco building/visitor centre plans ask at the reception of the Community Centre or call in at Cornerstone House. For any other info call 01623 723431 for Cornerstone or 01623 720140 for the Community Centre. Thanks for your support.

To support us further you could join the Newstead Enterprise Facebook site which is part of our pitch to the Big Lottery.

 

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