Our Scout Hut

Our Group started in January 1994 when it met at the (then) Mytchett Community Centre. Coincidentally, the Ash Vale Baden-Powell Scout Group started there shortly afterwards.

When Ash Parish Council handed the abandoned Scout Hut at Carrington Lane Recreation Ground to us over twenty years ago, it was a glorious moment; we had our own Scout Hut!

The building was a temporary structure that had already been re-built from another location years before and was well past its ‘sell by’ date. We knew that, but it has made our Scout Group, and over the years we have been working to maintain it and get funding to re-build it.

We used the Recreation Ground toilets until a parent donated the money to put in our own sewage receiver to serve two toilets donated by the Army.

A donation from a local company paid for fencing materials. The old fence was removed and the new fence erected by leaders, parents and children over a single frantic bad weather weekend.

Scouts re-built a donated garage for equipment storage. A local company fitted the roof and doors to that as a donation in support. That same company donated the porta cabin which serves as our canvas store.

The inside of the hut has been re-decorated several times, including replacing the ceiling because of the leaky roof; which is an ongoing maintenance project in its own right.

In 2017, we were granted a 25 year lease by Ash Parish Council with a promise to renew.

Despite tremendous effort by many over the years we have never been able to attract any donations to pay for re-building our Scout Hut until March 2020 when the Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation pledged £10,000.00 to that cause which brought a great smile to the entire Group and helped us believe that achievement might occur in our lifetime. A light at the end of the tunnel!?

Then, in May 2021, Your Fund Surrey (YFS) launched the process to distribute £100m to charitable projects in Surrey. We are currently onto the second phase of an application with YFS for a grant to cover the substantial shortfall required to re-build our Scout Hut.

We have a Project Manager (Architect), a local company poised to demolish and remove our existing dilapidated building, a steel building manufacturer ready to erect our new building, and a team of leaders, parents, trustees, and supporters waiting to make sure that it happens as quickly as possible with an excellent quality product that will serve the next generation – the leaders who once were Beavers, Cubs, and Scouts themselves; and the children they will encourage in their turn.

In 2024 we received the sad news that we were not selected to receive money from Your Fund Surrey. We have been rejected three times for funding to re-build our Sout Hut and have now decided to repair the existing building as a better use of our time and effort. We are starting with the floor and moving up. Any skills, time, materials or (even!) money would be most welcome.