WinACC is a local charity, set up in 2007 to educate people about climate change. More recently, they have been working towards their vision of a Winchester district where it is easy to live a sustainable life, with warmer homes, lower bills, better public transport, walking and cycling opportunities, and local clean energy generation.

Winchester district has one of the highest carbon footprints per person in the UK and WinACC aims to bring this down. Supported by Winchester City Council and South Downs National Park, they established WeCAN (Winchester Climate Action Network) to provide access to community climate action groups and half the district's population now has a WeCAN group in their neighbourhood. They organise a range of activities including thermal imaging loan schemes, green open home events, repair cafes, green fairs, swap events, renewable energy workshops, school bike buses, community allotments and wildflower meadows.

WinACC are also proud to have helped 10 community groups put solar panels on their buildings in the last two years through the Community Solar Support Scheme. They also provide input to ensure that impact on the climate is taken into account when devising local council policies, such as the Winchester Local Plan and Hampshire Waste and Minerals Plan

You can find out more about the work of WinACC and the WeCAN groups at www.winacc.org.uk or by searching for 'WinACC' on Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin and Tiktok.

Cycle Winchester is the local cycling advocacy group for Winchester and the surrounding area.

Their mission is to create a city and district that is ‘Better by Bike’ and they do this by:

1. promoting cycling as a convenient, healthy, inexpensive and environmentally friendly way to get around, and
2.  campaigning for improved infrastructure to enable more people to cycle.

Run exclusively by volunteers, Cycle Winchester organises the annual Winchester Mass Ride and supports the setting up of local school bike buses across the district.

Cycle Winchester members receive discounts at local bike shops and sign up to the Winchester Cycling Charter which brings together organisations and individuals with the common ambition of safer cycling and a better city.

For more information visit www.cyclewinchester.org.uk or follow @cyclewin on social media.

The first Repair Café Winchester took place in 2023, after a small group of enthusiasts from Winchester met on a Zoom event organised by Havant Repair Café and worked to make it happen. It has now been going for three years and was awarded the Green Category Award in the 2024 BBC Radio Solent Make a Difference Awards.

A repair cafe brings together skilled volunteer repairers and visitors to fix everyday household items and prevent them going into land fill. This includes electrical, electronic, mechanical, wooden, fabric, clothing - in fact almost anything that can be carried.

The Winchester group is a community of over 60 volunteers providing a wide range of repairing skills, from electrical to sewing, with others to organise the events on the day, including baking the cakes. They all share the common purpose of keeping objects working as long as possible, thereby reducing waste and carbon emissions from the manufacturing process.

The next step for Repair Café Winchester is to set up a borrowing library of useful tools and other gardening and DIY items. Often, tools spend most of their time in a cupboard so by sharing these items within the community, manufacturing impacts are reduced and local people have access to items that they otherwise might not be able or want to purchase or store.

For more information about Repair Café Winchester, visit www.repaircafewinchester.org

Run from Winchester, Party Kit Network is a social enterprise with an international reach.The network brings together and supports Party Kit members, who are all dedicated to reducing waste in their community by providing access to reusable party supplies to reduce the carbon footprint of celebrations.

Within the Winchester district, Party Kit has helped avoid over 45,000 single-use items since 2020. Their ambition is to help more people switch to reusables and for more people to set up kits so every celebration can be low waste.

Set up in 2019 by founder Isabel Mack (who also runs Party Kit Winchester) Party Kit Network now has nearly 600 members across 11 countries providing support, sharing resources and enabling broader access to reusable tableware for celebrations. To date they have helped avoid 1.3 million single-use items - roughly 7.8 tonnes of waste.

You can find more information about Party Kit Network at Party Kit Network or email hello@partykitnetwork.org .

Incredible Edible encourages local people to grow food together, as a way of reducing carbon emissions as well as improving their mental and physical health. Ultimately, they would like to see more community market gardens, more people loving working on the land and more good organic fruit and veg available at low cost locally.

Look out for the IEW planters at Winchester train station and in Abbey Gardens, designed to encourage people to get in touch and learn through gardening together. Their activities include allotment tending sessions at Edington Road on Tuesday and Saturday mornings, where all ages are welcome, are encouraged to socialise in the tea break and take home fresh produce afterwards.

The group of 15 IEW volunteers come under the umbrella of Winchester Action on the Climate Crisis (WinACC). Find out more on the WinACC website, email food@winacc.org.uk or see the posters at the train station, in Abbey Gardens and at The Arc.

Swift populations have fallen by approximately 68% in Hampshire and the UK over the past 30 years and Hampshire Swifts is a local charity dedicated to reversing the continuing decline in numbers by:

• giving talks, mounting exhibitions and attending events across the county to spread awareness of the need for nest sites,
• supplying and installing swift nest boxes and encouraging people to help swifts in their area by installing nest boxes,
• liaising with planners and developers to increase the provision of permanent swift nest sites in new buildings.

Established in 2016, Hampshire Swifts have installed over 500 swift boxes in Winchester - a very important breeding area for the birds - to compensate for the loss of natural swift nest sites that occurs when houses are re-roofed or have their soffits and facias replaced. They estimate that in 2025 the number of swifts breeding in Winchester was 43% higher than it was in 2018, in marked contrast to the continued national decline.

The charity has 5 trustees, a swift box maker and installer, and currently around 10 volunteers.

To find out more about the work of Hampshire Swifts, visit www.hampshireswifts.co.uk.

My Home Made Better is a charity-led initiative, offering free, expert advice to residents across Hampshire to help them make their home more energy efficient, save money on bills and help maintain a comfortable temperature in their property all year round.

The scheme is endorsed by Hampshire County Council, Southampton City Council and Portsmouth City Council. Every homeowner in Hampshire can claim a free, personalised 30-minute telephone consultation and receive impartial advice that is unique to their home.

My Home Made Better is run by the charity The Environment Centre (based in Southampton) in collaboration with Winchester Action on the Climate Crisis (WinACC), Petersfield Climate Action Network (PeCAN) and Energy Alton.

Visit www.myhomemadebetter.org or call 0800 804 8601 for more information.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust is one of the region’s largest and most successful nature conservation charities, with 135 employees, 1,400 volunteers and more than 29,000 members. For over 60 years, the Trust has worked to protect the wildlife and wild places of Hampshire, the Island and our local seas, creating more space for nature to thrive.

In the Winchester district, the Trust owns and manages a number of important nature reserves, including St Catherine’s Hill, Winnall Moors, Barton Meadow, Hockley Meadow, Hoe Road Meadow, Deacon Hill and St Faith’s Meadow. They also campaign for stronger protection of our chalk streams and are working with organisations through the Itchen Salmon Delivery Plan, to improve the River Itchen for Atlantic salmon.

Altogether, the Trust manages nearly 5,000 hectares of land for wildlife and welcomes thousands of people to its nature reserves and education centres each year. Their mission is to restore nature and work with communities to rebuild our relationship with the natural world - restoring habitats, rewilding land and sea, and demonstrating that people and nature can thrive together.

You can find out more about the Trust and their Wilder 2030 strategy at www.hiwwt.org.uk

Supported by Winchester City Council and South Downs National Park, WeCAN was established by Winchester Action on Climate Crisis to provide access to community climate action groups locally. Half of Winchester district's population now has a WeCAN group in their neighbourhood.

WeCAN groups organise a range of activities, including thermal imaging loan schemes, green open home events, repair cafes, green fairs, swap events, renewable energy workshops, school bike buses, community allotments and wildflower meadows.

You can find out more about the WeCAN groups on the WinACC website at  www.winacc.org.uk/wecan .