Community Action Fund enables projects across Land of the Fanns.

Over the last three years, the Land of the Fanns Landscape Partnership Scheme has awarded over £70,000 in grants to a variety of community groups, small charities, schools, environmental and heritage groups from its Community Action Fund. This funding has helped many smaller projects get off the ground and in addition has helped the Scheme in achieving its aims of connecting people to their local landscapes, restoring and protecting heritage and benefitting wildlife.

Across the Land of the Fanns area, which spans Havering, Barking & Dagenham, Brentwood, Thurrock and South West Essex, 21 projects have been funded by the Community Action Fund. The maximum grant award for any individual project has been around £5,000.

The first round of Community Action funding in 2018, saw three projects successfully receive funds and deliver projects via the Community Action Fund. These were Bulphan Village Community Forum, who applied to have an interpretation panel made and installed at the beginning of the Mardyke Way in Bulphan; Drapers Mayland Primary School, which received a grant to fund an orchard and pond dipping project, and Havering Wildlife Project who wanted to run a bat project and needed new bat detectors.  

January 2019 saw the second round of funding with five successful applications which were from Thurrock Local History Society, Friends of Dagnam Park, Grays Convent, Hornchurch Aerodrome Historical Trust and Riverside Community in Thurrock. These projects ranged from exploring the history of Thurrock’s cement industry to helping with the refurbishment of the new Hornchurch Aerodrome Heritage Centre. 

John Matthews of the Thurrock Local History Society said “The CAF enabled us to talk to people and record their memories of Thurrock’s cement industry. We produced a booklet which will be available in the Thameside Library. We also designed virtual interpretation boards which will be maintained and updated by the local history society and added videos to YouTube.”

July’s round of funding that year saw Havering Volunteer Centre awarded a grant to run interactive events and workshops, and the Discover Metropolitan Essex project secure monies to develop its network. Shelley Hart, CEO, Havering Volunteer Centre said “The funding allowed us to respond to the community’s needs and implement projects that fulfilled them. The legacy of the funding will be that we bring the community together more so everyone has a change to learn about each other and that although others may appear different, there are so many similarities between people. We engaged lots of volunteers as a result. 

In 2020, theatre company Rendered Retina, Eastbury Manor Rangers, University of Essex and Thorndon’s Friends Group were all successful in their applications. In the final round of funding in July 2020, a further six organisations applied and received grants. These included Conservators of Shenfield Common, Thurrock Museum, Friends of Bedfords Park, Essex Rock and Mineral Society, Essex Gardens Trust and Weald Country Park. These projects ranged from the revival of a Tudor herb garden, a theatre piece about recycling, restoration of ponds and wildlife habitats, geology and archaeologyand the conservation of one of the rare Humphrey Repton Red Books on designed landscapes. 

Sarah Demelo, from the University of Essex said of this project: “The funding has allowed us to build up a great relationship with the conservators at the Essex Record Office (ERO). We have had several site visits to see the progress on the Red Book for Stubbers where we have looked at the other original Red Books held in the ERO including the ‘Red Book for Hill Hall, Theydon Mount’ and the ‘Red Book for Stanstead Hall, Mountfitchet’ to compare them to our Red Book for Stubbers to research the similarities and differences between them all.”

Bedfords Park has seen a significant impact from the funding: “The main legacy of the project is that we have created a vibrant and varied habitat in an area which was just damp soil and pernicious weeds,” says Lois Amos, volunteer at Bedfords Park. 

“We have increased biodiversity within the walled garden and indeed probably the surrounding woodland and park. The pond and habitats we have created have inspired us to do even more for biodiversity and consider our garden wildlife in everything we cultivate, sow and plant.”

The breadth of the projects funded and the variety of the organisations applying for the funding demonstrates the huge number of people involved in preserving, recording, improving and protecting the natural and build heritage in the Land of the Fanns.  

Patricia Sinclair, chair of the Essex Garden Trust said “The core of our small charity is to protect heritage gardens and landscapes, and this funding (added to sum that Essex Garden Trust (EGT) was providing) enabled us to engage a superb and experienced landscape consultant, Twigs Way, who then upskilled the researchers to produce an EGT Thurrock Inventory. This document will now go into the planning system where it will help to defend important green spaces from inappropriate development. Heritage gardens and landscapes that we have researched but, sadly, cannot be included in the Inventory as they are no longer sufficiently extant, will be included in a publication of ‘lost’ gardens.”  

The Land of the Fanns is a unique £2.4 million Landscape Partnership Scheme, awarded £1.36 million by the National Lottery Heritage Fund in 2016. Nine partner organisations, with a shared goal of enabling local people to discover, restore and enjoy what’s special about the local landscape: Essex County Council, Forestry England, Thames Estuary Partnership, Brentwood Borough Council, London Borough of Havering, London Borough of Barking & Dagenham, Thames21 and Thurrock Council. Thames Chase Trust is the lead partner in the Scheme and will be the legacy vehicle once the Scheme comes to a conclusion in 2022. 

To see more about the successful Community Action funded projects and other projects supported by the Land of the Fanns, please go to www.landofthefanns.org.uk. Follow the Scheme on Facebook and Instagram for regular updates on projects.