Sustainability and community wrapped up in a nutshell: Play it Again Sport
Play it Again Sport is a social enterprise based in the Rhondda Valley and supported by the People and Work charity. They aim to remove financial barriers to sport and to reduce items being sent to landfill by selling donated sports clothing and equipment at reduced prices. They use the money raised to fund sports activities across the local area, taking the cost out of taking part.
In Autumn 2020, they received £15,000 from our Climate Action Boost fund to purchase an electric vehicle (EV) and to provide an electric vehicle charging point (EVCP) in Rhondda Fach, increasing their commitment to sustainability further.
Natasha Burnell, Enterprise Manager at Play it Again Sport, tells us more about the project:
“Taking part in the Climate Action Boost has been a brilliant opportunity for us. It has enabled us to promote Play it Again Sport across the Rhondda Valley, to reduce our carbon emissions and lower our costs, whilst making sports and exercise more accessible.
We bought a Nissan Leaf, a 100% electric car, and it has cut our emissions from transport to zero. We have saved approximately £600 in fuel costs since we received our car seven months ago, which is a significant saving for a social enterprise. (It would have been significantly more, but our activities and collections were hugely reduced this year by the COVID-19 lockdowns).
We’ve been using the electric car to transport our weekly walking group to different locations, such as Llanwonno and the Four Falls walk in Pontneddfechan. This has meant that we’ve reduced the number of cars travelling from three carbon cars to one electric car and reduced people’s costs accessing physical activity by supplying the transport.
We’ve also been using the car to collect donations from Cardiff and throughout Rhondda, as well as for our day-to-day travel when we’re out delivering sport. We’ve saved money on all these journeys as using the EV is about two thirds cheaper than using petrol – which means the money can be diverted back to delivering sport rather than covering running costs.
Whilst making these journeys and transporting people and stock, it has triggered multiple conversations with people about electric vehicles. We have been proud to share our knowledge with the local community about charging, range, costs, long-term feasibility and the practicalities of driving an EV. People have been flabbergasted at the noise reduction when using an EV too (something I’ve become incredibly conscious of when driving it).
Renew Wales as mentors were fantastic, particularly in sourcing information that was not readily available – such as the future locations of EVCP’s in Rhondda Cynon Taf as we wanted to ensure we would not be duplicating provision. The EVCP will be available for public use at Rhondda Fach Sports Centre soon - the first public one in Rhondda Fach. Renew Wales also helped hugely with finding information regarding the demographics of the local area, to pinpoint where and what we should be doing, and to give us context for the future.
We are now progressing with the development of a sustainability hub in Rhondda, which we hope to use to promote sustainability and provide real solutions for people to improve their commitment to the environment and to their own health and wellbeing. This hub would encompass Play it Again Sport, a zero-waste shop, repair café, Benthyg (a library of things) and workshops for sustainable activities such as beeswax wrap-making and clothing repurposing.
We are so grateful to the Climate Action Boost fund for the support in helping us become more sustainable, for providing the resources we needed, and for inspiring us to increase our commitment to sustainability further.”
**
Climate Action Boost was a fund to support community groups to take environmental action to help tackle the climate crisis, including support from Renew Wales and Sustainable Communities Wales to develop an action plan. Read more here.
Learn more about National Lottery funding available to support communities to take climate action.