Gants Hill Community Hub

Let’s Keep Our Streets Clean

Join our campaign to keep Gants Hill litter-free. We believe it is all of our responsibility to keep Gants Hill tidy and to ensure our children grow up in the safe and clean environment that we all deserve.

Our first step is creating a poster campaign with children from Gearies Primary School, which you will see in windows of businesses in Gants Hill roundabout.

The campaign is being led by a Working Group of residents, Redbridge Council, Vision and Redbridge Village. If you would like to be part of the solution, we would love you to join our Working Group. If you are interested email local resident Herbert who is leading the campaign herbert.sfl@gmail.com or hubs@redbridge.gov.uk.

What can you do?

• Join our Working Group to connect with others and create solutions by contacting herbert.sfl@gmail.com or hubs@redbridge.gov.uk.
• Click here to report litter on your street
• Click here to find out about work the council is already doing to tackle litter
• Read more about our findings of the research here

Background

In 2021, residents took part in a co-designed Community Research Project in partnership with Redbridge Council, University College London (UCL) and Mutual Gain. Residents led a survey reaching 120 people to learn about how people felt about litter locally.

What did people tell us?

• litter is ‘disgusting’, ‘dirty’ and ‘unnecessary’;
• some residents avoid areas of Gants Hill because of the amount of litter and are embarrassed to invite people to their homes.
• 45% of residents believe that individual behaviour is the main cause of litter, but 60% of residents looked to the council to solve the litter crisis.

We believe it is everyone has a part to play to keep Gants Hill litter-free.

Thank you to everyone who attended the Gants Hill Community Research Hackathon Weekend on the 27^th and 28^th November. 25 residents joined us over the two days to analyse the data and propose next steps. They were invigorating days and we covered a lot of ground.

On Saturday, we took a deep dive into the data to understand the research and creating priority statements.

On Sunday, we used the priority statements to identify what actions we could take from this.

You can find the research results, including surveys, interviews, observations, photographs and maps that we were analysing.

We are now conducting a survey to decide which priorities and actions we want to focus on. Everyone is welcome to take part. Closing date is Thursday 23rd December.

For enquiries about getting involved in the Gants Hill Community Research Project, please email imran.mir@redbridge.gov.uk.

Following the past three months of research carried out by Community Research Project volunteers, we are holding two in-person, Covid-secure, weekend session to invite residents to analyse the findings from the project, and plan our next steps.

If you're interested in the Gants Hill area or passionate about your local community, it would be brilliant to have you with us on one or both of these days. They're designed so you can join for the whole time, or just drop in for an hour or two.

We'll be looking at the data, photographs, maps and more which have been collated, kicking off at 12pm on Saturday 27th November at Gants Hill Library. There will be a follow-up session on Sunday 28th November at the same times .

If you'd like to come along, please register here so we can ensure that everyone is catered for, and we will send out further details in due course: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/gants-hill-community-research-project-data-hack-weekend-tickets-209997447017

Volunteer community researchers have designed a research project focusing on the ‘people and place’ of Gants Hill and want to hear residents’ experiences of Gants Hill.

The community-led research project, in partnership with Redbridge Council and University College London (UCL), will see volunteer explore three areas to explore the local community. These are:

• Community cohesion: To understand the diversity of Gants Hill
• Environment: To understand the impact that litter has on mental health and experiment with different approaches to reduce littering.
• Activities and Spaces: To understand the spaces we currently use to share and learn together, and what activities are available or missing in Gants Hill

Click here to complete the survey. You will have options to choose which questions you would like to answer.

If you have been approached to be photographed or filmed, click here to complete the photo consent form in order to take part.

Volunteers will be hosting an event to share their findings back to the community later this year. The findings will be used to shape activities in the local area, including the future Gants Hill Hub. Sign up here to receive more information and keep in touch with the project.

Eastern Avenue c. 1956.
Photo credit: www.gants-hill.comDo you live, work or study in Gants Hill or have an interest in the area? Volunteer researchers are being invited by Redbridge Council and University College London (UCL) to learn more about Gants Hill, building on recommendations from local residents to explore the themes of ‘people and place’ across the area.

If you would like to find out more, please watch a recording of the Information Session. Alternatively, you can click here to view the presentation or read the questions and answers from the session.

The Gants Hill Hub Design Group has completed the first stage of the co-design process and developed ten ‘design principles’ for the Gants Hill Hub site.

The group is made up of 40 local residents of different ages, backgrounds and perspectives, and representatives from charity, health, business, political groups along with RCKa architects and Redbridge Council.

Residents were encouraged to use their networks to feed in wider views, which enabled more than 250 local people to contribute their views. In addition, Redbridge Council held a public webinar so people could hear about the emerging design principles and feedback during the session and via a survey.

Local residents helped appoint architects early in 2020, and the Design Group then developed ten ‘design principles’ for the Gants Hill Hub site, situated on Cranbrook Road, through five in-depth online workshops. The group identified green spaces, safety and services as the most important principles for the site. They agreed the top priority should be that green space is preserved, expanded or spread across the site.

The group also agreed how proposals for a number of factors should be approached. These included how library services should be retained and that sustainability should be highlighted as a key priority. The group felt car parking should be deprioritised, in particular for out of borough commuters.

Feedback from the group showed 85% agreed the co-design process improved the project brief, with 94% feeling they’d been given an opportunity to express their views.

Gants Hill resident Manoj Vaidya said: “I got involved in the co-design process as I wanted to shape what was created in my local area. Once it’s open, there will be a sense of pride that we helped design an important part of our community.”

The result of the workshops has been drawn together in a report for the Gants Hill Hub site, which includes an overview of the design principles developed, a capacity study of the site and lessons from the co-design process. The report and the design principles will be built on in the next phase of the process and will shape how the scheme is developed.

Image: co-design illustration credit to RCKa architects

The Gants Hill Hub Design Group is a group of 40 local residents, brought together through an independent selection process, and representative of the population's age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, disability and ward.

The group is working with RCKa architects, the council and representatives from business, charitable and political groups, to develop a concept design for the Gants Hill site, including the future of Gants Hill Library. The group is meeting five times across September, October and November, with updates on progress and opportunities to feed back provided to the wider public.

In the fourth workshop, the group discussed and reviewed a set of 'design principles' which had been developed through the process. The 'design principles' form part of the final report from RCKa architects which will shape the architectural plans for Gants Hill Hub, when the project is taken to its next stage in the new year.

The wider public has been invited to hear about the process to date, the design principles and the next steps for the project by attending a public webinar on Thursday 29th October at 5.30pm. Free tickets can be obtained via the widget on the right hand side of the Gants Hill Hub site you are on or by visiting Eventbrite.

The design principles can be seen below, or you can access the full Session 4 document here.

The Gants Hill Hub Design Group is a group of 40 local residents, brought together through an independent selection process, and representative of the population's age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, disability and ward.

The group is working with RCKa architects, the council and representatives from business, charitable and political groups, to develop a concept design for the Gants Hill site, including the future of Gants Hill Library. The group is meeting five times across September, October and November, with updates on progress and opportunities to feed back provided to the wider public.

In the first workshop, the focus was on the unique identity of the Gants Hill area. Residents discussed what was special about their neighbourhoods, and spoke to their networks to develop a picture of the area's identity. (If you would like to contribute you stories or thoughts about the Gants Hill area, please click here.)

In the second workshop, RCKa architects presented information about the Gants Hill Hub site, including the policy context, considerations about different elements of the site, and information about council and health services, and activities which could be run from the new hub. (You can view the presentation below, but if it is not appearing trying clicking here.)

The presentation provided a basis for further discussion about what residents most value about the site, and which elements should be prioritised, strengthened, changed or reduced. Residents also discussed which services were most and least important, and what activities would bring the community together.

In the third workshop, the group participated in a snap poll to assess how different parts of the site might be approached, and RCKa architects shared a number of hypothetical examples of how the scheme on the Gants Hill Hub site could look, for feedback. (You can view the presentation below, but if it is not appearing trying clicking here.)

An opportunity to respond to these questions will be added to this site shortly. All discussions and views, as well as those of the wider public, will be fed into the development of the concept design and feasibility study, and be shared publicly at the end of this piece of work, in late October or November.

If you want to find out more about the Gants Hill Hub approach, timeline or background information, please look at the Documents, Timeline and FAQs sidebars on the main Gants Hill Hub page.