My husband, Peter Wilmers, who has died aged 72, was a pioneer of community greening whose work helped transform the Lancashire valley of Rossendale and inspired a national movement. A creative worker for the environment, he had a rare combination of strategic vision and an ability to get things done.
In 1983, Peter moved as a planner from Norfolk to Lancashire to lead Rossendale Groundwork, a not-for-profit environmental charity based on local partnerships, supported by the Countryside Commission. Rossendale, a Pennine valley with high unemployment and a degraded landscape, was not home to the first Groundwork trust, but Peter, with energy and political skill, established the Rossendale organisation as a model of what Groundwork could achieve.
Work focused on “New Landscapes” and “New Lives”. For 10 years, Groundwork was the third largest employer in the valley. Training schemes exceeded expectations; local footpaths and walls were restored; a derelict building became a visitor centre; and 22,000 trees a year were planted. Perceptions changed with community involvement. Peter played a major role in getting ministers to support a national rollout of Groundwork. The local MP, Sir David Trippier, emerged as a champion for the wider movement and the federation continues today as a national force for regeneration.
Sporting his green suits and red shoe laces, Peter attracted the great and the good while pioneering many innovative programmes. He led Groundwork’s expansion into east Lancashire and Bury in the 1990s. In Blackburn, a derelict canal building became a flagship centre; a £5m grant transformed wastelands around a deprived estate. “Youth Works” programmes targeted youth crime.
He set up the UK’s first business environmental audit programme, enabling small businesses to reduce their environmental impact and costs. This led to work in Hungary and Poland and conference presentations across Europe, in Beijing and New York. By 2003 Peter was managing four Groundwork organisations.
At the North West Development Agency, to which he moved in 2005, he championed “green infrastructure”, proposing investment in functional green space to sit alongside other infrastructure programmes. He helped Natural England reveal and celebrate the economic benefits of nature. This approach, pioneered through Natural Economy Northwest, is now established.
Peter retired in 2010. For 15 years he was a governor of Cribden House school, Rawtenstall. He actively participated on the board of Rossendale Leisure Trust and the Whitaker Museum until his death.
Born in Clapham, south London, Peter was the son of June (nee Mecredy), who taught English as a foreign language, and John Wilmers, a QC. He attended and was influenced by Leighton Park, a Quaker school in Reading, from which he went on to study social science at Leicester University and postgraduate planning at Nottingham University. Talented and multifaceted, Peter sparkled. His legacy continues in the landscape and the people changed and inspired by his work.
Peter was married first to Sue Biffen and then to Kath Long, with whom he had two sons, Tom and Harry. Both marriages ended in divorce, and Harry predeceased him. Peter and I met in 1987, and married four years later; he is also survived by Tom, his grandchildren, Hugo and Clara, and June.
