The Thornton Heath Community Action Team has been successful in a bid for £26,028 to empower residents to work together to make their streets safer, cleaner and greener.

The project will be rolled out over the next two years and is being funded by the People’s Health Trust which is an independent charity addressing health inequalities across Great Britain. It works closely with each of the 51 society lotteries and makes grants using money raised by the society lotteries through The Health Lottery.

The Street Action project will focus on developing street teams of residents in 20 specified roads in Thornton Heath working to improve their streets and bring neighbours together to care for their environment.

Each street will have a street leader who will form part of a sub committee of THCAT. They will be responsible for getting to know their neighbours, recruiting more members from their streets and together they will decide on their priorities and identifying who in their street needs help.

Meetings will take place to plan and carry out tailored actions for each street to improve the look and feel by tackling issues of rubbish, fly tipping and neglect.

Residents unable to look after their front gardens could be offered support and there will be increased awareness and help offered to neighbours in HMOs with ideas including sharing bulky waste collection to reduce fly tipping.

Other ideas include: weeding, planting up grot spots, painting and mending gates and fences, street art, anti dog fouling measures, and providing anti graffiti and fly posting paint.

The initiative aims to break down barriers uniting people from many different backgrounds in one common aim, to feel safer and more connected.

The projects will feature in The Chronicle over the coming months with articles written by local people about the improvements being made.

It’s part of THCAT’s overarching aim to get people to care more about Thornton Heath and make it cleaner and greener which it is also doing by encouraging people to improve their front gardens and enter July’s In Bloom competition.
Chair of THCAT Linda Watson, said: “We are very pleased and excited to have been successful in our bid for funding from the People’s Health Trust. This grant will enable us to expand on our existing plans to  make Thornton Heath a cleaner, greener, better place. It will help THCAT to develop our work supporting neighbours to get to know each other better whilst improving their street in a variety of ways.”

To get involved, please email: action@thorntonheath.net