Local Growth Fund Case Study: Earth Trust’s Earth Lab and Innovation Hub

In early 2020, we announced we’d secured £1million from the government’s Local Growth Fund to enable the environmental charity, ‘Earth Trust’ to commence a project demonstrating sustainable construction, environmental education and supporting environmentally aware businesses through leading by example.

5 years down the line – a global pandemic, various political changes and times of economic and ecological turbulence later – where is the significant environmental project now?

Earth Trust’s ambition is to create a new Gateway to the wonderful landscape of South Oxfordshire, the Wittenham Clumps and the much-loved nature-rich green spaces it cares for. The Local Growth Fund allocation made Phase One possible – Earth Trust’s ‘Earth Lab’ and ‘Innovation Hub’.

What now stands on the site are two stunningly innovative pieces of architecture and ecological design: the Earth Lab – complete with a full-depth springtime blooming wildflower roof – is a construction comprised of a timber frame, straw insulation panels, a rammed earth wall (using soil from the location); the Innovation Hub a former barn now being utilised as multi-use business units for sustainability-conscious businesses.

Completed in 2021, the site is now fully established and embedded within its surroundings, with the Earth Lab providing flexible classroom space used to deliver science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) and outdoor environmental education for young people. As a result, this has doubled Earth Trust’s opportunity to bring environmental science to life across the curriculum.

Since 2021, the project has created the space for 10,000 to attend events in the last year alone, secured long-term agreement for office hire space, as well as creating a Welcome Hub with coffee stop within the Innovation Hub and securing significant new funding to deliver projects out of Earth Lab.

Earth Lab is the busiest it has ever been – with 4,000 children from 90 schools visiting during 2024, the project continues to inspire the next generation to understand and care for their environment. The project acts as a vital component in Earth Trust’s mission to champion access and engagement with natural green spaces for everyone, to ‘take action for people and planet’.

For 40 years the environmental charity has been providing and championing accessible natural green space and running inspiring, award-winning programmes to help people connect with nature and the environment – and as a result of this project, it is poised to do more.

In total, OxLEP secured £1.49m of funding for the project via the government’s Local Growth Fund, after an additional £490k was approved for the Earth Lab to enable works to add to the sustainability of the project – with the overall cost of the project falling at £2.9m.

Dave Lewis, Director of Operations at Earth Trust, said: “The Local Growth Fund investment through OxLEP came at a pivotal moment for environmental education and sustainable innovation in Oxfordshire. Despite the unprecedented challenges that followed in 2020, this funding enabled us to create something truly remarkable.

“What’s particularly exciting is how the project has exceeded our initial ambitions – we’ll have nearly 60 Oxfordshire-based organisations visit this year for meetings and events, inspired by the surroundings we have here – while school children using the Earth Lab are not just learning about sustainability, they’re experiencing it first-hand through the building itself.

“The combination of the building’s natural materials, its innovative design, and its practical functionality makes it a powerful teaching tool in its own right. This investment has helped us move from simply talking about environmental solutions to actively demonstrating them, creating a legacy that will inspire environmental stewardship for decades to come.”

Find out more about Earth Trust and construction of the facilities