QUEEN Elizabeth’s School has secured a £20,000 National Lottery grant towards eco-friendly community initiatives.

The cash will be spent on a series of sustainability-focused events, culminating in an eco-fair at the Crediton secondary academy’s Barnfield site next summer.

The joint project with Crediton Town Council and Sustainable Crediton has been newly christened the “QE Crediton Community Collective”.

“We're going to be using this money to do a number of different projects within our whole community, not just within school,” said QE Community and Inclusion worker Tamlyn Fraiquin, who applied for the grant.

"There'll be various initiatives, so we're going to ask people in the community to come up with other ideas that we can help support with some of this money, and the idea is next summer we will have a big eco-fair at Barnfield.

“We are hoping this leads to greater cohesion and us all working together to achieve much more.

“This is about bringing young people forwards with the town council, and the youth service and Sustainable Crediton, and starting to have an impact across the entire community.”

Ideas for the type of events that could be held will be sought soon. Suggestions floated already include swapping baby clothes, making “bug hotels” for sale at the farmers' market, and creating a “museum of useless objects”.

In recent years, QE has spearheaded a number of eco-friendly initiatives.

A group of sixth-formers launched a successful second-hand school uniform store in 2024 in a bid to combat waste and reduce the school’s carbon footprint.

Then, in 2025, a committee of two dozen year 10 students launched “Pre-Loved Prom”, a prom-outfit rental service with similar sustainability aims.

Both Ecothreads and Pre-Loved Prom were supported by Ms Fraiquin and charity Involve Mid Devon.