Localities Initiative
In the Summer of 2022 we were awarded £3600 from the Community Renewal Fund to work with three communities across mid Wales to see if there is sufficient demand to establish a car club there. The three communities are: Carno, Ceinws and Llandrindod Wells. We identified a local person to be our community contact and followed up with several public meetings to discuss the project and to understand their needs and learn about their community.
As at November 2022, we have introduced an EV to Ceinws and they are now working on getting a dedicated parking space, somewhere to store the keys and installing a dedicated charge point. In Llandrindod Wells we are still working with them to gather further expressions of interest and hope we can introduce an EV early 2023. In Carno there is interest, but we don’t have sufficient people to justify introducing a car just yet, more work is required to find potential members
The UK Community Renewal Fund is a UK Government programme for 2021/22. This aims to support people and communities most in need across the UK to pilot programmes and new approaches to prepare for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. It invests in skills, community and place, local business, and supporting people into employment. For more information, visit https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-community-renewal-fund-prospectus
Winter Pressures Project
In December 2021 we were fortunate to receive money from the Welsh Government to support community groups and individuals with their transport needs through the Winter of 2021/22. At the time we were expecting there to be further Covid lockdowns and the pandemic had taken its toll on many peoples’ mental well-being. The outlook going into winter was not good and so this funding was a ray of sunshine. It helped us form relationships with other community groups such as Newtown Dial-a-Ride, Newtown Food Surplus, Community Space Project CIC in Newtown, WD Foodbank in Welshpool and volunteer driver Ron Olden in Machynlleth. We have almost spent the money from the fund, but this project has widen our horizons and given us the opportunity to work with other community groups which will continue to do.
Open Newtown
TripTo arose out of this project, which was a Big Lottery funded project (2018-2021) to establish 3 electric car clubs in mid Wales and to install charge points. At the start of 2021 the Llani Car Club CIC, then in its 14th year of operation and which had been running an EV for 2 years started working with Open Newtown to make the project happen. Two of the largest obstacles were car insurance and the admin system required to run car clubs, which Llani Car club were able solve. Open Newtown provided funding to help adapt the current admin system to cope with the changes required and paid for a professional marketing person to help us come up with a new name for the project. TripTo was born.