Submitted by Marc De'ath

At Sustained we love to hear about people or groups who set about changing something in the community. In our home town Colchester we are seeing off-the-shelf housing being built at a rate of knots and every pocket of green space seems to be snapped up for development.

With these public spaces and wildlife habitat dwindling, one of my grassroots heores is Richard Smith who decided to act. We've a small area of land called the Moorlands in Colchester, that sits between various housing estates and a river (the River Colne). Up until now most of the local people would consider it a piece of 'wasteland' where bored kids carve up their scooters and bikes.

However, activist Richard saw beyond this to a natural beauty spot that is home to kingfishers, owls, and migrating sea birds, muntjac deer,  large-eared wood mice, bats and an abundance of plants and rare insects, so he set about founding 'The Moors Movement' to preserve, protect and improve the area for the benefit of wildlife and the local community.

An inspiration to us all up and down the country, this group has successfully united members of the public to claim a small piece of land that can now both peacefully act as a refuge to wildlife and be a place for the public to enjoy - no mean feat, so pats on the back all round. Sustained Magazine would like to say thank you.

You can follow their project at Moors Movement and if you have any of your own grassroots heroes you'd like to shout about, email us at grassroots@sustainedmagazine.com