Celebrating 25 years of Wycombe Environment Centre
We are delighted that Emma Reynolds, MP, and Secretary of State for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, will be coming to our Refresh shop at 16 Church Street on 13th June 2026, at 3pm, to help us mark 25 years of Wycombe Environment Centre.
We will be delighted to welcome our local MP to our shop, almost 6 months to the day after opening in the new premises. Previously Refresh was in ‘meanwhile’ premises in the former Chiltern Shopping Centre, first in a former jewellers, and more recently the old Card Factory shop. Refresh moved to its new premises in Church Street in January this year, taking on a 5 year lease.
We will be marking Emma’s visit with some alcohol free Nosecco and nibbles, as well as having some fun with cardboard models, sometimes known as junk modelling.
Wycombe Environment Centre was formally constituted as a Charity in 2001, although it was actually founded 3 years earlier in 1998 by Frances Alexander, a former Wycombe councillor and iconic town figure who died on 7th September 2020. Frances’ daughter Louise was instrumental in establishing the vision for Refresh. When Buckinghamshire Council marked its scrap store for closure in 2021, she could see the potential of its transformation into a retail based social enterprise, and came up with the name Refresh. This was a fitting legacy for her mum, whose energy and commitment continues to inspire the current trustees and volunteers.
According to the Bucks Free Press, Dr Frances Alexander was a well known figure in High Wycombe as the town's former mayor, founder of the Environment Centre and president of the Wycombe Liberal Democrats among many other things.
Frances, and her late husband Eric, a scientist, environmentalist and political campaigner who passed away in 2016, settled in High Wycombe in 1969. Over the next 50 years Frances became a tour de force in the local community, in local politics, in local arts, and as a teacher in local schools.
She founded The Environment Centre, first on The Rye, then on the Oxford Road, then in Frogmoor. She was chairman of Wycombe District Council in 1997/98 and Mayor of High Wycombe in 1998/99. Frances also wrote a book for children, “High Wycombe Then and Now”, which combined local history and heritage with colouring-in. Frances, for many years, was the organiser of the annual Open Art Exhibition in Wycombe, providing encouragement and an outlet for local artists and creative people.
In more recent years Frances was honoured with a Doctorate from Bucks New University, and awarded the role of Honorary Burgess by Wycombe District Council.
When Arriva buses introduced a fleet of five new buses in High Wycombe and asked the public to vote on names for them in 2015, Frances was one of the five distinguished local people acknowledged, along with Gareth Ainsworth, Peter Cartwright, Benjamin Disraeli, and Rikki Aktar Hussain.
In 1984, she founded an organisation of international friendship, Women Welcome Women World Wide. Today it has some 3,000 members in more than 75 countries - many have visited its office in Easton Street, or stayed in the town during a “gathering” of members.