About us

Prestwich Environmental Forum empowers individuals, groups and organisations in Prestwich to protect our community from the growing threat of climate change.

We are a community-led and run, grassroots group for positive change.

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What we are

  • A space for Prestwich individuals, groups and organisations to come together to discuss issues and develop constructive solutions.
  • A fair, democratic and inclusive group, providing an equal voice for all in Prestwich.
  • An opportunity for community members to share ideas and learn from each other.
  • A voice to raise awareness of the climate emergency within our community.
  • An opportunity for businesses, services, the council and other stakeholders of Prestwich to work effectively with the community.
  • A group voice, to be valued by businesses, services, the council and other stakeholders of Prestwich.
  • A forum for discussion, networking and collaboration in the fight against climate change.
  • A Prestwich group working with other groups in Bury and the UK.

What we are not

  • A negative campaign.
  • A political group.
  • A one-policy or one-campaign springboard.
  • A group that demands change without being part of the solution.
  • A group that hounds or harasses for change.
  • A group that allows or tolerates discrimination of any kind.

More about us...

COMMUNITY

We always want to hear what's important to anyone in Prestwich - concerns or ideas - whether you've been to one of our meetings or not.

MEMBERSHIP

PEF membership is open to anyone who lives, works, studies or spends regular time in Prestwich. We welcome members of all ages and backgrounds.

As a member, there is no expectation of attendance or participation from you. We'd welcome anyone to join a meeting, even if just to listen in.

All our key decisions are taken by members. You chose what we focus on.

In order to vote at our AGMs, you need to have attended at least one meeting in the previous 12 months.

COMMITTEE

We have a small number of members who keep PEF running on a day-to-day basis. All of the projects we run are decided by the membership, and if there are key decisions to be made, the committee will bring it to members.

All of our committee members are volunteers. There is a lot more work than you might expect so we always welcome help or new committee members. Just get in touch to chat if you're interested or have time/skills/ideas to offer.

OFFICERS

Within our committee, we have a Chair, Secretary and Treasurer.

Join PEF today!

Many thanks to the hard work of our current committee (2023/24):

Anna (Chair), Clare (Treasurer), Arma, Dan, Delia, Madeleine, Roger & Tiff.

...and to our outgoing committee (2023/24):

Anna (Co-Chair/Co-Secretary), Madeleine (Co-Chair/Co-Secretary), Clare (Treasurer), Bonni, Dan, Delia, Maria & Roger.

 

PEF was founded by:

Delia with the help of Anna, Belinda, Dan, Lucy & Neil.

 

Our Plastic-Free Prestwich steering group is made up of:

Dan (Lead), Anna, Cath, Emily & Jordan.

Many thanks to Cllr Quinn who supports the steering group on behalf of Bury Council.

 

We're also working with Betty-Ann on Air Quality/School Street projects.

 

The Warwick Street Green project is run jointly by PEF, local residents, businesses & Clean Team Prestwich, and supported by local Councillors.

There are too many residents and helping hands to name, but thanks to everyone that has come down, shared ideas or get stuck in!

An enormous thanks to Dan, Denise, Mike, Roger & Trish for coordinating activities, securing funding and driving the project forward.

Thank you to Cllr Green, Cllr O'Brien & Cllr Thorpe for supporting the project and providing some funds.

 

Developing this website has been a joint effort by numerous members of PEF and the committee.

A special thank you to Dan, Emily and Alex for their expert help and time.

 

The star of the show are our wonderful members. We have well over 200 currently, thank you to you all!

Sorry, we're still building this section of our website... check again soon!

Prestwich Environmental Forum’s story began in 2019...

A small group of us asked Bury Council to commit to develop a plan to address climate change and work in partnership with local people and community groups. 

Bury Council declared a climate emergency in July 2019. Their motion, which our founders contributed to, recognised that many people in the community were increasingly concerned about the damage climate change is causing to our planet. It set out that forums should be created across Bury to provide a safe space to share concerns and explore ideas for tackling environmental issues at a local level. The first of these in Bury - Prestwich Environmental Forum - was formed.

Volunteers put together two initial community workshops to understand what people in Prestwich felt were the most important climate issues, and used that information to inform our initial priority themes:

🌿Planting, 🚴‍♂️Getting about, ⚡Energy & ♻️Waste.

Community working groups were formed to look at each of themes and we started making connections with other community groups who were already doing great work locally...

And then the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Plans for community meetings where shelved as we waited for things to pass. When it became apparent that face-to-face meetings were not going to be safe for the foreseeable future, we put together online 'magazine style' events where we interviewed local people doing great work around our four themes.

We became a formal community group in February 2022.

Holding our Inaugural General Meeting, we approved a constitution and committee, which allowed us to open a bank account and apply for local funding streams. We also launched our member surveys, listening to what people locally felt were the priorities for us. We reviewed the results and identified our key areas of focus.

Prestwich Environmental Forum’s first big project was Plastic Free Prestwich, a national scheme ran by the great charity Surfers Against Sewage, to reduce single-use plastic in our towns.

Following that, we’ve contributed to a range of projects and initiatives in Prestwich and have collaborated on Bury Council’s climate objectives. Find out more about our current activities on our projects page.

Five years on and we have over 200 members. Every year we hold an AGM/social and use these as an opportunity to reassess our priorities with our members.

Together we continue to make Prestwich a cleaner, greener and fairer place to live.

Prestwich is a hive of activity, with countless local organisations doing great work for the community. Here are just a few that we've worked with:

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Want to work with us? Get in touch.