BENCH PROJECT
LISTENING TO OUR COMMUNITY AND DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT
We carried out engagement sessions with our members who attend sessions in our community spaces last year.
We asked about barriers to being active & healthy and what measures might help with addressing this.
Lots of people spoke about the lack of adequate seating around the town & how it discourages people to walk, as there aren’t enough places to rest. Especially affecting people with poor mobility or those with long term health conditions.
The benches are now being cited and will have a QR code that links to the BLAST website :)
So we had a think about how we might be able to help.
We spoke to our local councillor and applied to her leadership fund to provide two benches that would commemorate the coronation of King Charles.
This soon led to trying to find ways to scale this up and secure additional funding for more benches, as two wouldn’t have much impact.
We applied to Bolsover Compass and told them about our idea and how it had come from local people sharing their insights.
They loved the idea and were very supportive straight away, agreeing to provide additional funds to purchase 10 benches in total