Our aims and objectives, impact on the ground and how we operate as a federation of charities.
The main themes of our work and some of our most important initiatives.
What we can do for the wide range of people and organisations that we work with.
Find out the latest about how we're changing places and lives.
Further your career or help us make a difference.
How to contact our team
In the recession of the early 1980s, the environment and social cohesion of many parts of the UK was under threat. The collapse of traditional industries with associated environmental degradation and conflict within communities called for a new response.
Groundwork was born out of a competition for local authorities won by St Helens. ‘Operation Groundwork’ was described by the then Environment Secretary Michael Heseltine as ‘an entrepreneurial team, which could act independently as an enabler to mobilise all the resources in the community - public, private and voluntary’.
The first Groundwork Trust was so successful that areas around the country applied to duplicate the experiment.
Over the following decades, we expanded geographically and also our work became more diverse as each Trust responded to local circumstances and innovated.
We’re now a federation of charities with a membership based on a mixture of local Trusts and regional organisations, with Groundwork UK acting as a national voice and co-ordinator. From small beginnings in St Helens, we now work across English regions, Wales and Northern Ireland and there are a number of Groundwork projects in Europe, Japan and the USA.
Groundwork Northern Ireland was set up in 1991 and delivers environmental improvements in areas of need throughout Northern Ireland and in the border counties of the Republic of Ireland. The focus is to work in areas of disadvantage where the peace process is at its most fragile – working in partnership with communities to regenerate hearts, minds and places. We aim to use environmental regeneration to engage with and motivate people to improve their quality of life. Our commitment to regeneration and peace building was demonstrated, when, in 2004, the Trust relocated to its present location in an interface area of North Belfast.
