Will you spare a little time to make a large impact around your home area?
Remember the days of Covid when everyone worked together and we rediscovered what the word Community really meant?
We think that sense of everyone pulling together for a common goal still exists and so we want to ask you to form your own street gang! You don’t have to wear a hoodie… All you need do is talk to your neighbours about becoming part of our StreetWise initiative.
Let’s explain what that means.
Most people are proud of where they live and how it looks. We have all become used to relying on the council to do everything – fix potholes, cut the grass, weed the paving, sweep the gutters. But our priorities are not always the same as the council’s. You might want your verges full of cowslips and bluebells. Or want to plant trees.
Wild Sherborne is currently supporting Ella Oxford and Kathryn Phelps who have mounted a long running campaign for the Town Council to cease using Glyphosate by their maintenance team, arguing it is bad for the environment, potentially cancer causing, and dangerous to the council’s own workers. The council has not yet implemented a ban, saying it is the only solution for the toughest of weeds. Ella and Kathryyn have offered to create Hoedowns where volunteers will manually remove problem areas but some councillors are unconvinced. And at the recent Annual Parish Meeting the vote was 15-3 in favour of a ban.
We want the council to trust the electorate to fix such issues by controlling problems that affect them directly. By forming StreetWise teams we can take control of such issues and therefore each street could alter it’s own environment for the better.
All you need to do is talk to a few neighbours and discuss those issues that you care about and what you would be prepared to do.
Get in touch with Pesticide Free Sherborne here dorsetpesticidefree@gmail.com
If you are interested in forming a StreetWise group – or HAVE formed a Streetwise group, please let us know. We will help make connections and keep communication flowing, putting interested individuals and groups in touch with one another. Pop us an email here Streetwise@wildsherborne.co.uk
