Serving Whitebushes including Bushfield Shaw and Spencer Meadows & surrounding areas
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Join us in our mission to create lasting social change and share valuable local information in Whitebushes and beyond.
At help in the bushes we are committed to improving the facilities and community we live in. We accept that not everyone on the Whitebushes estate, in Redhill, Surrey will be on social media so we have taken the time to set up a website for news, events and activities as well as information on local services you may wish to get involved with.
It is always interesting to know more about the history of the area and I came across this wonderful history that was put together by Mark who lived on the estate since 1988 until moving to Sussex where he is now also doing the history of his new area.
There are so many bits of information within his site www.whitebushes.org.uk (link bellow) that I didn’t have any knowledge about.
If you want to learn more about the wider area the Reigate & Redhill local and family history group may be able to help and there website is:
https://www.surreycc.gov.uk/culture-and-leisure/local-history-centres/redhill/reigate
The estate has been lucky enough to have had very proactive councillors, Reigate & Banstead Borough Council community development workers, residents and support from other organisations/businesses such as Raven Housing, McDonalds Earlswood, YMCA and Redhill football club that have supported events on the estate.
In 2023 the current community development worker Charlie Griswood advertised locally for volunteers to start a panel of residents to feed back what we would like to see worked on for our estate.
A walk around of the estate was completed before we sat down and had a more lengthy discussion about where we are and where we would like to see the estate progress.
Firstly we had to come up with a name and taking the lead from Merstham that during the height of the pandemic set up “Help in the ham”, and Woodhatch that enjoys the community centre cafe “Down the hatch” the name we felt had to follow this local tradition.
We spoke about many issues including the current works completed with the Kiln Community Garden and the litter picking events that we presently do. We went on to discuss the need to try and see other improvements on the estate including looking at ways to increase the range of events for our older children but also looking at how we can raise awareness of clubs, activities and events to prevent loneliness something that many may have, or continue to feel following the Covid lockdown periods .
Naturally we have come up with some ideas to also look at options to develop these new opportunities but these are at early stages of discussions. We all agreed that the Kiln Community Garden is something that as an estate we can be proud off and would like to see more people volunteering to maintain this. Should we be able to sufficiently recruit enough volunteers we have identified other areas that could similarly be enhanced to share the same community improvements elsewhere on the estate.
However, we accept that not everyone is on social media and that as some residents will be on both the social media pages that means that there is a large part of the community that either is not aware of the pages or prefer to avoid social media. As a result of this an idea was put forward to set up a website that allows residents to see what’s on and local news whilst also allowing any new residents to the estate to learn more about the area.
The site went live in late November 2023 with many listings of events over the festive season, as well as a lot of community information and we look forward to not only expanding this online information presence, also supporting local clubs, venues and activities/event organisers across a wider area to feature on the site to increase the opportunity to attract more visitors/members but also to promote the work we current do and hope to expand into in the future.
The group is made up of local residents that want to further improve the estate and facilities for their community. We are always looking for more volunteers to join in on our events and you will find representatives at the Kiln Community Garden on the morning of the first Saturday of the month if you wish to become more involved in your local community.