Benches in Taunton High Street have been given a new lease of life with environmental-themed paintings.

Somerset Council has been working with partners GoCreate and Rights Community Action to re-invigorate Taunton’s High Street Benches with beautiful artwork created by the community for the community.

The message to those who use the climate benches is “Don’t just sit on it”, which intends to raise awareness of climate change and inspire people to do more to protect our natural world.

This Friday 23 June a mini launch to open the first climate benches is to be hosted by Go Create and Rights Community Action, between 12 noon and 2pm on Taunton High Street. The remaining benches will be painted over the summer in line with requests from Rights Community Action’s funding arrangement. Everyone is welcome to come along and join in.

This project has been co-funded by the Environmental Leisure Improvement Fund (administered under the former Somerset West and Taunton Council) and Rights Community Action. GoCreate have been hosting creative workshops for the last couple of months where members of the public have been involved with artwork and helped design the benches which follow an important environmental theme that aligns with one of the Council’s top priorities – to create a greener more sustainable Somerset.

To find out what you can do to help protect Somerset against the effects of climate change visit Climate and Ecological Emergency (somerset.gov.uk)

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