The Valleys Regional Park

Parc Rhanbarthol y Cymoedd

WECAN - latest news

Communities play a vital role in maintaining and enhancing green spaces in their localities. The WECAN project is supporting them in this and understanding how to do it better...

Supporting Community Green Spaces

March 2013

The ultimate aim of the initiative is to provide support and assistance to the community groups caring for open spaces helping to raise the profile of each individual group and also to raise awareness of the good work and important contribution that voluntary groups are making to green spaces across the Valleys Regional Park.

WECAN is seeking to work with community groups working to protect and enhance green spaces across teh valleys. All community green spaces are eligible to enter, as long as they are freely accessible to all and unlocked as much as possible.

More details here ,

As part of WECAN Work Package 4, we are seeking to engage and involve communities in their natural environment. The 2012 Dark Sky Discovery Festival did just that...

Dark Sky Discovery Festival

December 2012

To launch the network of the community-based Dark Sky Discovery sites across the Valleys Regional Park, we organised The Valleys Dark Sky Discovery Festival at designated sites to promote the area as a prime location for observing the night sky. Working with Dark Sky Wales, local authorities, and community groups, thirteen events were organised over two weeks at various locations across the valleys. More than 500 people turned out despite the atrocious weather!

We also produced a Dark Sky Discovery video to promote the festival and the opportunities for viewing the wonders of the universe at the Dark Sky Discovery sites.

The valleys are home to a fantastic natural environment with wonderful heritage just waiting to be discovered. We are working with superb artists to inspire communities and visitors to explore...

Discover the Valleys!

April 2013

Over 150 artists applied to work with Valleys Regional Park through the WECAN project on a poster campaign to encourage people to explore and discover the superb natural heritage of the valleys.

Supported by the Arts Council of Wales and taking inspiration from the iconic Shell poster campaigns of the mid-twentieth century, we have chosen ten artists to produce artworks that will be used in a poster campaign. A major exhibition is planned for late September 2013 at Tredegar. In addition, we shall be working with artists to run community workshops at which the public can produce their own artworks based on the Valleys wonderful landscape and heritage.

Amongst the WECAN project's aims are re-connecting communities with their natural environment and developing skills and employment opportunities...

Environmental Guardians

April 2013

As part of the Valleys Regional Park programme's aim to develop employment and training opportunities to support economic, social and environmental revitalisation in the south Wales valleys, through the Interreg IVB WECAN project, we have commissioned SoSavi as external experts to develop a new programme for apprentices and volunteers to become Environmental Guardians.

We have learned much from our WECAN partners in Belgium and France where there are volunteer Rangers and professional Ecogardes respectively,as well as working with VRP partners to develop the programme which we hope to start and run out later this year.

For the WECAN news archive, click here