St Nicks

It will come as no surprise to hear that the Environment Centre remains closed during the latest lockdown. You are of course welcome to visit the nature reserve (observing  Covid restrictions, naturally). Nature really does work magic during these tricky times, and we can’t put it better than this wonderful article in the Guardian, celebrating our very own “unexpected wonderland”. It goes on […]

  A quick update on the Environment Centre’s opening hours and activity over the Festive break. The centre is officially closed from the 18th December to 4th January ’21. You may see some staff on the reserve as the Green Spaces Team keep up routine maintenance and our Recycling Team will be carrying out residential […]

Are you passionate about the environment and supporting young people to make a difference? An amazing opportunity has come up for a part-time Green Mentor to inspire and engage with youth leaders between 10 and 14 years old to lead on environmental action projects across York as part of the exciting Green Influencers Scheme, a […]

Our month-long Precious Plastic York crowdfunder goes live today. We have many rewards available for our supporters check out the crowdfunder here. Based on the open source designs available from the lovely folks over at Precious Plastic, we will be developing machinery to recycle plastic waste ourselves. We want to change hearts and minds about […]

As we move into a second phase of Covid lockdown we are ever aware of the need for people to enjoy fresh air, a place to go to exercise and a reminder of the simple joys of being in nature. Although the Environment Centre remains closed for the near future,  please do come along and […]

Due to Covid-19 we’ve had to make some staff changes and keep the Environment Centre closed to the public. However, we’ve also been busy carrying on with making York better for both people and wildlife: please see for yourself in this quarterly digest including links and pictures.  We hope the reading will inspire you to […]

Covid-19 has forced many charities to make changes to the way they work as they face significant challenges due to the impact of the pandemic, and St Nicks is no exception. A survey of the sector in York shows that 63% of organisations expect to be financially unsustainable within 12 months or less if the current […]

Did you know in the first month of lockdown the volumes of residential recycling increased by over 50%? Many residents used their time at home to have clear outs of old paperwork and it kept us very busy! If you are thinking about having a clear out remember to be responsible, many household waste recycling […]

We have come up with a plan to enable socially distant volunteering on site but to do so we need your help. We only have a very limited amount of tools. In the past, it has not been a problem for volunteers to share tools because there was no risk in this but now, there […]

[Updated 30th March 2020] In order to limit undue risk of exposure to the coronavirus we are following the government’s advice to reduce social contact wherever possible and ask you to avoid visiting St Nicks unless it’s for exercise. Green spaces like St Nicks can help us all get through this difficult time but we […]