IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO LEAVE A MESSAGE FOR CEP OR COMMENT ON OUR CLOSURE PLEASE FOLLOW THE LEFT HAND LINK TO OUR FORUM PAGE. WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK EVERYONE WHO'S ALREADY CONTACTED US WITH SO MANY KIND WISHES FOLLOWING OUR CLOSURE ANNOUNCEMENT. WE HAVE KEPT THE MESSAGES ANONYMOUS (BELOW) AS ALL WERE RECEIVED VIA EMAIL.

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From Essex Fire Service

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I am really sorry to receive your news.  You have all made such a positive contribution to our area.  Thanks to all the team at CEP for your hard work and commitment

We will certainly miss all your drive and enthusiasm and the many projects that CEP drove forward.  It’s a sad day! And just as I had learned to love recycling as well ….I can remember you giving me a pep talk about my green box, and I now use it and put my plastic bags out and cardboard, and everything!

Very sorry to hear your news. Clearly ECC and maybe CBC do not believe in Climate Change; I am at this very time opposing Army and Navy plans to promote more car journeys and delaying pedestrians and cyclists!! Best of Luck.

I'm very sad to hear of the closure of CEP, both as a Chelmsford Resident and member of …. staff.  Please let me know if there is anything we can do to help to keep existing projects running.

I am terribly sorry to hear the sad news. Thank you to you and all that have been involved in CEP. You have done wonderfully positive things and added a rich dimension to civic life in Chelmsford. I wish you well with your future plans. You are a fantastic ambassador for the cause of not only environmental improvement and sustainability but also community well-being.

A great shame, a forlorn hope perhaps but this may make CBC or ECC actually do something. LAs do not have the capacity to do everything themselves and they need partners to deliver the LSP and LAA targets. Best of luck for the future.

It’s such a shame and so short-sighted as there is much that needs doing and without anyone to drive it forward I have my doubts whether current environmental issue will progress any further.

Am stunned, if not slightly surprised at this news.  I can only imagine the debates and wrangling that have gone on over the last few months, and I am guessing that the shabby treatment from Chelmsford Borough Council is central……What a disgrace.  Please pass on my best wishes, and most importantly my thanks, to everyone involved in CEP.

Such a shame - do hope your work can continue. It does seem to me that local authorities and their associates like to make all the right noises but when it comes to the real 'vision thing' they don't get it.

Sorry to hear the sad news, a bad start for the year and the environment

Closure of the Partnership.

It is with great regret that the Trustees of the Chelmsford Environment Partnership have decided to wind-up the organisation after nearly ten years of effort and achievement. It was set up in 1998, by a concerned group of business people and academics, to assist the Borough Council and the citizens of Chelmsford to implement the original Kyoto agreement and Agenda 21 objectives for community action; to meet environmental obligations and to encourage local businesses and people to address climate change. Community involvement and participation by young people has been a priority. Overall, there was the objective to bring into the community funding that would not be available to local government.

The Partnership and its trading company, CEP Trading, Ltd., will cease working at the end of March. Unless others can come forward, the Chelmsford Environment Consultative Group, the youth initiative, ImpACT, community allotments and the Friends of Marconi ponds will also have to be wound-up. Their administration and funding have been Partnership initiatives and responsibilities.

“Ten Years of Achievement”

Partnership Chairman, Robert Jones, said, “This is a black day for environmental protection in the Borough but the Trustees have decided that they are not prepared to continue to give up their time and energies without the sort of financial support and political will that is required to meet the challenges of climate change, local air pollution and the need for urgent behaviour change.”

The Manager, Helena Byles, speaks for the staff in saying that they regret the closure but are proud to have been part of ten years of achievement. “I have only recently taken up this post,” she said,” and I regret that I will not be able to

continue all the valuable work that is in hand and planned. Over the years the Trustees have brought resources into the Borough, created employment and opportunities for volunteers and have put Chelmsford on the map, from their European conference, ‘Sustainable Communities’, in 2003 to other nationally recognised initiatives. One cannot help feeling that it is all being thrown away.”

“A Great Loss to the Borough”

The Partnership’s Community Green Projects Leader, Charlotte Welch, expresses fear that projects, such as the Marconi Ponds Wildlife Site and the much loved Community Allotments Project will be lost. “This would be a huge loss to the Borough,” she said, “It is a great pity that all that has been achieved by the money, volunteers and goodwill that the Trustees have generated should be lost. But I totally understand how they have finally succumbed to frustration. We are all worried about losing our jobs but I know that it is only that consideration that had actually postponed the decision for most of the Trustees.”

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