Community action/Somerset
| Map | |
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| Location | Somerset, United Kingdom |
| Coordinates | 51° 9' 42.30" N, 3° 4' 31.39" W |
The aim of this page is to recognise, celebrate and encourage the self-empowerment of community agency networks (CANs) and community groups' activism for climate, environment and many other sustainability topics across Somerset.
News
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Businesses face extinction unless they protect nature, major report warns, BBC News (Feb 09, 2026) - Enlisting hearts and minds to save Somerset’s last eels, positive.news (Aug 18, 2025)
- New national forest to see 20m trees planted, BBC News (Mar 21, 2025)
- Citizens’ Assembly to invest £100,000 in West’s culture, westofengland-ca.gov.uk (Jan 16, 2026)
- ‘We found 23,000 worms!’ The soil project bringing life back to the land, positive.news (Oct 22, 2025)
- Mussel power: how an offshore shellfish farm is boosting marine life, theconversation.com (Jun 06, 2025)
- Record-breaking heat and dry spring leave parts of England without water, reuters.com (May 29, 2026)
- The English restaurant turning hospitality on its head, positive.news (May 27, 2026) — At a pay-as-you-can restaurant in Stroud, radical hospitality and good food are bringing strangers together
- Britain’s green transition should belong to everyone. Why is Labour so intent on stopping us having our say? George Monbiot, theguardian.com (May 27, 2026)
- Amsterdam, along with other major European cities, bans public adverts for meat and fossil fuels [BBC], Daily Alternative (May 22, 2026)
- How reindeer herds, nature and Sámi culture can thrive when forests are restored across northern Europe, theconversation.com (May 15, 2026)
- Rewilding giants: captive elephants rehomed in Europe’s first sanctuary, theguardian.com (May 07, 2026)
- Amsterdam, along with other major European cities, bans public adverts for meat and fossil fuels [BBC], Daily Alternative (May 22, 2026)
- Solidarity fields in Syria: Reviving local seed production, globalvoices.org (May 21, 2026) — A community garden on Damascus's edge is quietly rebuilding Syria's agricultural memory
- How reindeer herds, nature and Sámi culture can thrive when forests are restored across northern Europe, theconversation.com (May 15, 2026)
Networks and sustainability initiatives
[edit | edit source]- Transition Glastonbury
- Transition Portishead
- West Somerset Together on facebook
Each week 3 different short videos from across the UK or world.
Rural sustainability UK, Community energy UK, Community action/Argyll and Bute / ...This week's featured Global videos / ... read more about Cosmolocalism
UK and international events
[edit | edit source]UK events
Jun 1 - 7, 2026 (Mon - Sun) — Neighbourhood Watch Week, ourwatch.org.uk- Jun 1 - 7, 2026 (Mon - Sun) — Volunteers Week, celebrating and saying thank you to the millions of volunteers across the UK, volunteersweek.org
- Jun 5 - 8, 2026 (Fri - Mon) — The Big Lunch, the first weekend in June every year, everyone is invited, anyone can join in and whatever food people bring to the table is there to be shared, edenprojectcommunities.com
- Jun 6 - 14, 2026 (Sat-Sun) — Great Big Green Week, celebrating communities taking action to tackle climate change and protect green spaces, greatbiggreenweek.com
- Jun 07, 2026 (Sun) — Open Farm Sunday, farmsunday.org
- Jun 8 - 14, 2026 (Mon - Sun) — Carers Week, carersweek.org
- Jun 8 - 14, 2026 (Mon - Sun) — Bike Week, annual celebration showcasing cycling and how brilliant it is!, cyclinguk.org
- Jun 15 - 21, 2026 (Mon - Sun) — Loneliness Awareness Week, lonelinessawarenessweek.org
- Jun 15 - 21, 2026 (Mon - Sun) — Better Transport Week, annual, week-long celebration of sustainable transport, bettertransport.org.uk
- Jun 15 - 21, 2026 (Mon - Sun) — Refugee Week, refugeeweek.org.uk
- Jun 18, 2026 (Thu) — Clean Air Day, actionforcleanair.org.uk
- Jun 19 - 21, 2026 (Fri - Sun) — The Great Get Together, annual celebration organised by The Jo Cox Foundation, helping unite people, bridge divides, and tackle loneliness, while showing the collective power we have as a community, jocoxfoundation.org
- Jun 29 - Jul 3, 2026 (Mon - Fri) — National Co-production Week, scie.org.uk
Global or international events
- Jun 03, 2026 (Wed) — World Bicycle Day, The bicycle is a "symbol of sustainable transport and conveys a positive message to foster sustainable consumption and production, and has a positive impact on climate." (United Nations), June 3 each year, un.org
- Jun 05, 2026 (Fri) — World Environment Day, June 5, annually, worldenvironmentday.global
- Jun 08, 2026 (Mon) — World Oceans Day, June 8 each year, worldoceanday.org
- Jun 12, 2026 (Fri) — World Day Against Child Labour, every year on June 12, ilo.org
- Jun 17, 2026 (Wed) — World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, each June 17, un.org
- Jun 21 and all of June — World Localization Day, worldlocalizationday.org
- Jun 22, 2026 (Mon) — World Rainforest Day, June 22 is World Rainforest Day, worldrainforestday.org
2021-2030, UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, International community action events
Somerset video
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Food activism
[edit | edit source]- Glastonbury Farmers Market
- The Community Farm, Chew Magna
- Incredible Edible Somerset
- Somerset Community Food, grass-roots charity in Somerset which aims to re-connect people with the social, health and environmental effects of growing, buying, preparing and eating local food
- Somerset Country Markets
- Somerset Farmers' Markets
- Somerset Local Food Direct
Towards sustainable economies
[edit | edit source]- Onion collective, added 19:29, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
Health and wellbeing
[edit | edit source]Climate action
[edit | edit source]- Somerset CAN, Somerset Climate action Network, Somerset net carbon neutral by 2030, added 11:57, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
Sustainable transport activism
[edit | edit source]Long-distance footpaths in the county include: Coleridge Way, Limestone Link, Macmillan Way West, Mendip Way, Monarch's Way, Quantock Greenway, River Parrett Trail, Two Tunnels Greenway and West Deane Way. The South West Coast Path National Trail has its starting point at Minehead. W
- Wikipedia:Category:Footpaths in Somerset (category)
Cycling activism
[edit | edit source]The county has one of the first National cycle routes created in Britain 3, 4 and 24 provide cyclists with ways to minimise contact with motor traffic. The Bristol & Bath Railway Path is a 15-mile off-road cycleway, following an old railway track that forms part of Route 4. The path consists of a 3-m-wide tarmacked surface, and was used for 2.4 million trips in 2007, increasing by 10% per year.[90] Route 24, otherwise known as the Colliers Way, currently runs from Dundas Aqueduct to Frome via Radstock. W
Biodiversity
[edit | edit source]In 2009, the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, The RSPB and the Pensthorpe Conservation Trust, with funding from Viridor Credits, began a partnership project to re-establish a breeding population of cranes at a new wetland site. A rearing facility or "crane school" was set up at WWT Slimbridge; this consists of a 1-acre (4,000 m2) marsh garden designed to rear crane chicks between 2010 and 2014 in as close to a wild environment as possible. A pre-release enclosure was also constructed on the Somerset Levels. Although the cranes are hand-reared, all humans having contact with the birds wear special grey cover-all smocks, complete with hoods, and feed the cranes using plaster cast crane heads mounted onto litter picker handles. Approximately 20 cranes are reared and released each year. The first cranes were released in 2010 with annual releases planned up until 2014. The cranes are released in Somerset, on the Somerset Levels and Moors, where the project is also working with farmers and landowners to create suitable breeding areas for the birds. A pair of cranes from the project laid the first egg in 2013. W
- The Great Crane Project
- Somerset Beekeepers' Association
- Somerset Wildlife Trust
- Yatton and Congresbury Wildlife Action Group* Wikipedia:Category:Nature reserves in Somerset (category)
Open spaces
[edit | edit source]Somerset is a rural county of rolling hills, the Blackdown Hills, Mendip Hills, Quantock Hills and Exmoor National Park, and large flat expanses of land including the Somerset Levels.
- saveyourgreenbelt.co.uk, added 15:08, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
The county contains several-miles-wide sections of the Avon green belt area, which is primarily in place to prevent urban sprawl from the Bristol and Bath built up areas encroaching into the rural areas of North Somerset, Bath and North East Somerset, and Mendip districts in the county, as well as maintaining surrounding countryside. It stretches from the coastline between the towns of Portishead and Clevedon, extending eastwards past Nailsea, around the Bristol conurbation, and through to the city of Bath. The green belt border intersects with the Mendip Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) along its south boundary, and meets the Cotswolds AONB by its eastern extent along the Wiltshire county border, creating an extended area protected from inappropriate development.
Wetlands
[edit | edit source]- Somerset Wetlands National Nature Reserve, information from gov.uk, published 19 May 2022
Rural sustainability
[edit | edit source]News archive
[edit | edit source]- Enlisting hearts and minds to save Somerset’s last eels, positive.news (Aug 18, 2025)
- New national forest to see 20m trees planted, BBC News (Mar 21, 2025)
- Why the British are flooding parts of their coast, Leo Plunkett, Sandy Watt, news.mongabay.com (Mar 19, 2025)
2023-2024
- A new flow: pioneering UK river restoration declared a success, positive.news (Oct 21, 2024)
- Glastonbury gets 'climate action plan', BBC News (Aug 23, 2024)
- ‘It’s unbelievable the difference a path has made’: how volunteers are building a cycle network a yard at a time, theguardian.com (May 16, 2024)
- The plan to create a ‘nature recovery site’ in every English county, positive.news (Mar 27, 2023)
2018-2022
- With its digital community mapping, fungus-driven mill, and reuse of coastal buildings, the Onion Collective is a vibrant CAN, The Daily Alternative (Jun 14, 2022)
- Britain’s first wetland ‘super reserve’ offers boost to nature-based solutions to climate change, The Conversation (Jun 07, 2022)
- Stream Farm – A New Model for New Entrants, Dec 21, 2018...Resilience
- Ecological Land Cooperative purchases site in South Somerset to create new small farms, Oct, 2018...ecologicalland.coop. The Ecological Land Cooperative works to create affordable ecological smallholdings for new entrants to farming – those who would ordinarily be unable to afford a house in the countryside yet who wish to earn a living through farming.
About Somerset
[edit | edit source]Past events
- June 15, 2014, Green Scythe Fair
Campaigns
- Frack Free Somerset
- The Strawberry Line, A traffic-free route from the Mendips to the sea
Somerset ( SUM-ər-set, -sit), archaically Somersetshire ( SUM-ər-set-sheer, -sit-, -shər), is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Bristol, and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. The largest settlement is the city of Bath.
Near you
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| Authors | Phil Green |
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| License | CC-BY-SA-3.0 |
| Cite as | Philralph (2014–2026). "Community action/Somerset". Appropedia. Retrieved June 4, 2026. |