Resurrecting this year after a hiatus last time out is the Western Park Pumpkin Roll. On Saturday 30th October from 2pm we will be holding this popular event for the fourth time. If you aren’t familiar with the event then the basic premise is to race your pumpkin down one of the hills in the park to see whose can reach the bottom the fastest. Anyone who has been along before knows that we love it when the competitors embrace the spirit of the season by donning their favourite Halloween costume but the weather can sometimes be “interesting” so bare that in mind when you are planning your outfit.
Bring your spook-tacularly decorated pumpkin along to our stand located near to the car park and play park in Western Park just behind the toilet block. Here you can register for the rolling competition for £2.50. You will also be entered into a “Best Decorated Pumpkin” contest. There will be refreshments available here as well as tickets for our spook raffle. Everything we raise on the day will be donated to Project Hive.
In our eyes, every scarecrow that entered this year’s Western Park Scarecrow Trail was a winner. Those who attended the trail have voted for their favourite three, and here are the results:
The residents of Western Park invite you back for a third year to celebrate the creativity of our community. Follow the Western Park Scarecrow Trail around our streets and find all of the scarecrows. This year the trail has the theme of “The World Of Books”. Remember that there is more to books than just what goes on between the covers!
The trail runs from 10 am until 5 pm on both days.
Following its success last time, we will once again be selling guide maps from two locations one on either side of Hinckley Road A47. One of the stands can be found at 17 Dorchester Road, the other at 96 Letchworth Road. For the first time, we will be able to accept contactless payments at these locations for guide maps, refreshments, and raffle tickets. Visitors to the trail will be able to vote for their favorite scarecrow with the builder winning a prize. Voting will be open online until midnight on 5th September. A prize is also available for one person who successfully solves the number puzzle which can be found on some of the scarecrows. To qualify for entry you must answer each of the individual puzzles and then combine those answers to find an overall solution. A winner will be chosen at random from the correct answers submitted online.
Scruffythomas will also be operating a refreshments stall out of 120 Glenfield Road and there will be a number of craft stalls run by our local crafting community to visit at residential addresses along the route. The locations of these stalls will be clearly marked on the map.
WWCE is delighted to announce that the road to a new community space for in Western Park for everyone has reached its most significant milestone yet, our plans have been approved!
After Leicester City Council put several small parcels of land along the Hinckley Road edge of Western Park up for sale in June 2016, Western Ward Community Enterprise (WWCE), a volunteer-run group made up of local residents has been working tirelessly to secure the ongoing use of part of these sites for use by the community. Following a successful crowdfunding campaign in late 2019 that raised significant funds, WWCE has been working with GSS Architecture to draw up ambitious plans to redevelop the site from its present derelict state.
The former “Eco House” was a symbol of Leicester’s status as the UK’s first Environment City. It was an example of the latest technologies available within environmental design when was opened by HRH Prince Charles in 1989. Both WWCE and GSS carefully considered the history of the site in order to respect the environmental ethos of the house, by the creation of a sustainable, eco-friendly, and bio-diverse development at the heart of the community dubbed Project Hive.
In addition to the variety of community spaces that will be available within Project Hive, there will also be both indoor and outdoor teaching areas, available for use by local schools. Speaking of the recent success for this project, Anna McAuley, Chair of WWCE, said, “This is such a tremendous milestone for the members of the WWCE, but also for the community in its entirety. GSS have been incredibly supportive and offered us unconditional advice all the way through. From this point onwards, the hard work begins. Finding approximately £500K for the build is no mean feat, but we hope that we can forge some fantastic partnerships with local businesses and educational facilities to keep the costs down as much as possible.”
Andrew Vallis, Architect leading the project at GSSArchitecture, said, “Working on this project to achieve this significant milestone has been an extremely rewarding experience, with an interesting site and an excellent client, whose desire to do something for the community as a whole has resulted in the success of this application. This approval is a symbol of WWCE’s drive and commitment to bring back a piece of Leicester’s history, as a usable asset for the whole community, respecting the site’s past and carrying on the sustainable intentions which have been an important part of Leicester’s story for many years.”
If you would like to find out more, contact us through our website wwce.org.uk
An artist’s impression of Project Hive based on the approved plans.
We are delighted to announce that 491 days after we initially submitted it, today planning permission was granted for our proposed works to bring the disused and derelict site of the former Eco House.
None of this would have been possible without the incredible fundraising efforts of our community over the last five years. It is their desire to keep this piece of land in community hands that has kept us driving towards this milestone, especially during the crowdfund of late 2019/early 2020 where we were able to specifically finance the architects and surveys needed to submit planning.
This is a huge step towards bringing the site back to life and into use by our community and beyond. Now the challenge of raising the capital finance needed to complete the works begins!
We are thrilled to annouce that the theme for 2021’s Western Park Trail will be “The World Of Books” after the theme was the narrow winner in a recent public vote. You don’t need to be limited to just what goes on between the covers, let your imagination run wild!
The theme for the 2021 Western Park Scarecrow Trail.
You can register to enter your own scarecrow here:
Something to get all of your creative juices flowing again while we wait for freedom…After the success of the calendar last year, WWCE are launching this event early this year to give you all plenty of opportunities to capture a special image. Email it to projecthive@outlook.com with your name, age and roughly where it was taken.There is no limit to how many entries you can submit between now and the end of September. Try to make your pictures landscape (horizontal). Remember, your picture should not have been used in an other publication and if it contain a person or persons, they should be unidentifiable. More details will be published later.
Back for another calendar. Get your enties in as soon as you take them!
Not long to go now our Light up Western Up Park Event is live. Before it starts, here are some things to know/remember. The event begins 1pm on Saturday 12th December and runs until 6pm. It then returns at 2pm on Sunday 13th again until 6pm.
From almost a hundred annonomised entries, the judges chose their final twelve photographs that will make up your Parklife 2021 calendar. You can order a copy now by following this link:
Alexis Hutson, Tony Shelly, Reuben Fenn, Sarah Jones, Julie Grest, Jo Hall, Hannah Farrow, Emma Lowe, Anna McAuley, Ruth Herbert, Darren Cotton and Nick Halpine.
Thank you to everyone that was involved in builing a scarecrow and/or took a walk around the trail this year. To all those who bought ice cream, cake and raffle tickets in huge amounts while on their journey to see our 61 enterants.
The buzz around the Western Park area over the weekend has been something truly special and I think we can all agree that it was much needed after the ‘challenging’ year we have faced. It was lovely for everyone involved to hear such positivity around our efforts to run this event again and it makes the whole thing worthwile for us.
Special thanks to the ward councillors who covered the cost of running the event with their ward funding.
We are delighted to announce that we have raised another £2121 towards Project Hive.
The entry with the most votes will be announced on Tuesday 8th September after voting closes tomorrow (Monday 7th).
The Western Park Scarecrow Trail return’s for it’s second year this coming weekend (5th & 6th September) and while we have had to make a couple of changes so we can run the event during the Covid restrictions, at it’s core it remains the fun community event it was last time out.
We are unable to use the playground at Dovelands school as our base, so this year guide maps will be available from two points along the trail.
17 Dorchester Road and 32 Westfield Road will be selling them alongside a limited amount of sugary treats to re-fuel those tired legs. There may also be a couple of surprise pop-up stalls along the route.
The guide maps will feature a link so you can vote for the best scarecrow online. As an added bonus for trail-going completists, some of our scarecrows will have cryptic number puzzles that when added up, will give a number that can be entered online for your your chance to win a prize.
We are pleased to confirm the judging panel for our (Western) Parklife event. Reverend Liz Wilson, Vicar of our local church. She is joined by Councillor Gary O’Donnell, one of the team of councillors for the Western Ward. Completing out trio is Sarah Salotti of Sarah Salotti Photography.
Annoucing our next fundraising event , A community created calendar.
Our latest fundraising event!
Do you have a photograph that you feel captures life in the Western Park area; or could you take one? Do you have a favourite view or secret spot? A treasured tree or a snap of our wonderful wildlife? We want to put together a calendar that showcases our little corner of the city.
A panel of judges will decide the top twelve photographs which will then be turned into a professionally produced 2021 calendar. The calendar will then go on sale with all proceeds going towards our continuing efforts to bring a new community space to the Western Park area.
Entries are free and welcome from those of any age. 0-999 years. Entrants do not have to live within the Western Park area, but the image must have been taken here.It’s couldn’t be easier to enter, simply email your submission at full resolution to projecthive@outlook.com. Please include your full name and a brief description of where the picture was taken.
All entries must be recieved by the end of 25th September 2020.All photographs must be original and not previously used for any other publication. If your image contains indentifiable individuals, you should have their permission to include them in this competition.The judging panel will be independent of, and not affiliated with WWCE
We are delighted to announce the return of the Western Park Scarecrow Trail for 2020. We feel that the event is perfectly suited to whatever level of social distancing may be in place on the 5th & 6th of September, although there will be some changes to last years set up.
The community response both in terms of scarecrow entries registered and turn out of “trailers” over the weekend blew us away. And the buzz created by it was the perfect start to our successful crowdfunding campaign.
This year we want it to be even bigger and better, to do this we need your help. If you are a resident of the Western Park area we need your imagination, creativity and for you to register as a scarecrow builder. This year’s theme is “Heroes” (which can come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes). Registration costs £5 per entry. You can register through our Facebook event page or by following this link:
Hello everyone, we thought we would take a moment to update you all on the progress of Project Hive during these challenging times…
It’s safe to say that the last couple of months haven’t really gone the way we had envisioned them to when we were planning 2020. Coming off the back of a very successful 2019, we were hoping to go full steam ahead and get things physically moving with the building this year. As the ongoing situation has developed, we quickly realised that many of the plans we had would need to go on the back burner.
As we write this, we still aren’t sure how things are going to play out, so making firm plans is next to impossible and announcing anything specific a fools errand. The important thing to remember is that this is temporary, it will pass. The great community events run by us and other groups that so many come out to enjoy will return. What has been hugely heartening is the way that our community, the very reason we exist, has rallied around and strengthened its bonds despite the limitations to us actually being together. It has galvanised our determination to see this project through to completion and to give this community the new space it deserves, to be together.
Stay safe everyone and we look forward to seeing you all soon…
We did it! The target for crowd funding has been reached and passed! Since the start of September a massive £27,267 has been raised. Thank you.
That “we” includes anyone who has supported this endeavour, you are all a part of the journey we are now on together. Whether you have pledged directly via the Spacehive website, bought a cake, decorated and rolled a pumpkin, made a scarecrow or walked the trail, eaten a curry, swapped Pokemon cards, not worn school uniform or danced the night away at the Christmas Party. The whole WWCE team have been truly humbled by the enthusiasm that the community repeatedly shows for fund raising events, many of which we were running for the first time.
We have been told that Project Hive is a great example of positive community activism in action. The result will be a new space that allows even more activities that bring people together from across our whole community. We now have the funding to complete the designs and surveys to the point of formal planning going in by the middle of February.
It doesn’t end here, our sights are already set on the next milestone towards the building opening it’s doors.
On the 18th January we held the final event of our crowdfund campaign, Winstanley House was the beautiful setting for a Coffee & Cake morning.
Lovely Cakes.
We raised another £600 towards our target, there is now less than £1,000 to go. Crowdfunding ends on 24th January, you can pledge your support here: spacehive.com/project-hive
