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Feature Item:

Actor’s dedication to common touch

Friday, 23 September 2011

By Lindsay Burns

AN ACTOR who has worked tirelessly for more than two decades to help improve his local common has been nominated for an award.

Nick Day, who has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) as well as appearing in 2009 film The Wolfman and TV series Midsomer Murders, is the chairman of Plumstead Common Environment Group.

Mr Day, 64, who lives in Plumstead with his wife, is a founding member of the award-winning group, which has helped transform Plumstead and Winn’s commons.

Over the past 20 years, the group has installed weirs in the Slade ponds to filter away polluted water, cleared the former “dumping ground” of Plumstead Common nature reserve and planted native trees and shrubs.

Members have also worked closely with Greenwich council to clamp down on dog mess and work with schools in the area to promote conservation.

Mr Day, who is currently rehearsing several plays with the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon, said: “I think the world we look at and live in belongs to us all.

“I think we all have a responsibility to that world.

“The common, particularly, was won for the people, by the people.

“It’s our common space and we have a common purpose to look after it.

“I can’t walk out of my house without thinking I have to share the care for that.

It’s my job to bring people together and create a common sense of purpose so we’re working together in harmony.”

Every year since 2007, the group has won a Green Flag award, and last year it also won a Safer Parks award from the London Mayor.

Mr Day’s passion and determination has seen him nominated for a South London Press Our Heroes award for those who work to make their neighbourhoods a better place.

Mr Day said Plumstead Common was litter-strewn and graffiti-ridden before the group started to clear it up and he believes people instinctively care for clean, attractive places.

He said: “We have created a haven for wildlife and for people, too. Our thinking is that the better, more welcoming and more pleasant things are, the safer it becomes.”

He said crime in the area had fallen over the past five years and believes improvements to the common have helped this.

Visit www.pceg.org.uk for more information.

Nominations have closed for the Our Heroes campaign.

Nominees’ stories will be given to a panel of judges this month.

The winners will be announced at a gala ceremony at the South Bank headquarters of sponsors Shell on November 15.

Copyright Tindle Newspapers Ltd Wednesday, 19 June 2013