On Friday 27th January, Bournville Village Trust (BVT) welcomed visitors from Port Sunlight Village Trust, the independent charitable trust responsible for preserving and promoting Port Sunlight in Merseyside.
Bournville and Port Sunlight share many similarities, as Port Sunlight was founded in 1888 to provide local people/workers with decent and affordable houses, amenities and welfare provisions that made their lives secure and comfortable and enabled them to flourish.
Like BVT, Port Sunlight Village Trust (PSVT) is an independent charitable trust. It is responsible for preserving and promoting the village, and all of the village’s parks, gardens, monuments and memorials are cared for by PSVT, as well as the majority of public buildings and nearly a third of the houses.
As both organisations are so similar, the aim of the visit was to share knowledge, experience and learning, and visitors discussed everything from reviewing design guides and estate services to the challenges of providing an estate and stewardship service.
Tracey Rowe, Head of Estates and Stewardship at BVT, said: “It was a real pleasure to welcome visitors from Port Sunlight Village Trust to tour the Bournville estate. It was really interesting to share common experiences, learn from their knowledge and understanding and discuss some of the challenges that we both face in providing estate services.”
In 2021, BVT launched a new Bournville estate design guide following a consultation with over 7,000 residents. The comprehensive Guide offers advice on everything from making alterations to listed buildings and Bournville’s conservation area to gardens and building materials.
Available to read on our website, the Guide places a much greater emphasis than the previous version did on protecting the environment and encouraging bio-diversity, two areas residents said were important to them.