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 rebuilt 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 raise funds to rebuild 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 covered the cost of 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 redecorated several times, including replacing the ceiling due to a 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 of renewal.

Despite tremendous effort by many over the years, we have never been able to attract any donations to pay for rebuilding 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 applied to YFS for a grant to cover the substantial shortfall required to rebuild our Scout Hut. We selected 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. However, after three unsuccessful applications, a beacon of hope was lit when Your Fund Surrey suggested we try one last time for a smaller amount. On this occasion, we changed tactics from asking for the money for a whole new building to asking for the funds to renovate our existing hut.

By the middle of 2025, it was confirmed that we were successful in our bid. From that point, things moved very quickly. We employed a local building team to handle the complete renovation, which included: insulating and reskinning the exterior walls, replacing the windows, a complete electrical rewire, a full kitchen installation, and many other tasks. More information about the full refit can be found in our GSM’s speech at the reopening ceremony of our hut here: A Very Special Day. It has breathed new life into our hut and stabilised our future. We wish to thank everyone who was involved in the project and look forward to our new scouting adventures.