A TOWN centre hub is busy getting across its message on tackling the climate and ecological emergency.

Woking Environment Action (WEAct) has been welcoming residents to a unit in Mercia Walk and sharing thoughts and experiences on how to foster community commitment.

“It has been going well from the perspective of engaging the public,” said Rupert Devereux, one of the hub’s volunteers. “People are concerned about climate change in the wider context, but also about what is happening locally.

“Although we were set up as a climate emergency centre, we believe we have a wider offering with our conservation work, whether it’s removing invasive plants or helping to make Woking more hedgehog friendly.

“At the heart of it all, we ask visitors to think about the question, ‘What is your tipping point to take action?’

“Every day there is a greater awareness among people, whether it is Zoom reaching more of us or hearing from Greta Thunberg.

“On television there are the terrible floods in Pakistan, and at home the prospect of much higher energy bills. There will be people now thinking that they should installed solar panels a few years ago.

“And we need much more continuity of thought and action from politicians, who have at times been too easily pressured by commercial interests.

“A longer-term approach is needed. We have to understand that we are the ancestors of the future, and have to think that way.

“We shouldn’t be building to knock it down again in 25 years, we should think like the cathedral-builders of old, who built to last for centuries.”

WEAct is also preparing for Woking’s part in the Great Big Green Week, a national campaign celebrating action against climate change which runs from 24 September to October 2.

There will be a series of events, beginning with the launch in the town centre and taking in such activities as a biodiversity work party, a litter-pick and an opportunity to put climate-based questions to Woking MP Jonathan Lord.

FOR more information and a detailed timetable for Great Big Green Week, visit www.wokingenvironmentaction.com.