VOLUNTEERS of a community rewilding project in Luxulyan, near St Austell, are having to rebuild from scratch after a fire destroyed it’s site.

The devastating fire on the evening of Friday, July 24 destroyed the Luxulyan Environment Green Glebe Space (LEGGS) site, leaving countless hours of volunteering reduced to ashes.

The fire destroyed the site's shelter, tools and equipment, leaving volunteers facing the uphill task of rebuilding from scratch. Whilst the site has public liability insurance, there was no cover in place for everything that has been lost.

One of the people behind the rewilding project, Shelley Porter, said: “My friend drove past the site on Friday evening and she rushed round to where I was, which is just around the corner, and said that LEGGS is on fire. I first thought that somebody’s set the meadow on fire but when we went round the corner it was the store and shelter that was on fire.

“We lost our scythes, which are not cheap to replace, we lost 10 wooden chairs that we had a grant for, around four wheelbarrows which were also given to us, all the tools that we required over the last four years and a barbecue that wasn’t useable again.”

The glebeland, which belong to the Diocese of Truro, is a site that is enjoyed by everyone in the community and was visited by a large number of school children just days before the incident occurred. The space is also used by the church who use it to stage a live nativity at Christmas.

Shelley continued: “The Monday before the fire, we had local school children down from every year group visit the site. I think there were a lot of children who were pretty gutted to find that the place they had just visited was now all burnt down.

“We want to rebuild the shelter that was well used by the community, we probably won’t build it like for like because it needs to be fairly secure so we can keep our replacement tools and equipment safe. We also want to try and put in a substantial small shipping container that we’ll clad in wood to make it more secure.”

A fundraising page has been set up to help cover the costs of clearing the site, replacing essential equipment and materials, as well as rebuilding the shelter. At the time of writing, more than £900 had been raised by members of the public, whilst funding has also been received to repair the shelter.

Shelley added: “I’m slightly overwhelmed really. I had help to set up the GoFundMe page from Stacie Tregonning who has been absolutely brilliant. The last time I looked at the fundraising page it was at £900 so I was just amazed. The pub is going to do a quiz night for us too which is set to take place at the end of August.

“I feel very confident that we’re going to manage to get enough funding together to certainly rebuild the shelter, put a store up and hopefully replace things like the scythes.

“The community have been absolutely superb, we’ve had numerous people helping to clear the site so that we could open it again to the public. We’ve lost a lot but we’ve actually gained a lot of support.”

To donate to the GoFundMe page, visit: www.gofundme.com/f/help-luxulyan-environment-green-glebe-space-leggs-rebuild