Mark Todd tells us why he feels our local community is poorer for having lost The Wells Centre.
Hi, I’m Mark Todd, Save the Wells Committee member and former Langley Vale resident. For those of you who don’t know Langley Vale, it is a small village, like The Wells, on the edge of Epsom just beyond the racecourse.
Like the Wells it has the great benefit of being surrounded by beautiful countryside. In Langley Vale, it is more hills and horses, rather than the Common but this too creates a nice sense of being out of town as well as a bit of isolation particularly when it’s cold and dark.
In Langley Vale, there are three main community assets: the little church, the primary school, and the village hall. The village hall owned by the church, is run by a Committee of well intentioned residents on a not for profit basis. It is used as a pre-school that many of the local kids attend before going onto primary school. Without it, many local kids would have to go to Epsom or Ashtead for pre-school creating extra traffic and less local friendships.
The hall is also used for fitness classes, dance and drama schools, shows, birthday parties, quiz nights, as a polling station at election time and for many more things. In fact, it is so popular that it is permanently booked up.
Langley Vale is quite isolated like The Wells and having a village hall creates a fabulous sense of community for the residents. When I lived there it was lovely to walk my daughter to the pre-school and pick her up from it chatting and making friends with the local parents along the way. We used the hall for birthday parties regularly, and attended fitness classes there too.
Many other Langley Vale residents have also told me how coffee mornings and quiz nights have helped them meet other local people in what otherwise could be a rather isolated, lonely community of commuters.
Like the people on the Wells, I’m sure that everyone in Langley Vale would agree that they’d hate to lose their village hall and they’d all feel poorer for it if they did.
Please note all opinions are the author’s own and are not those of EWCA. If you would like to submit a blog outlining what the centre meant to you, or how it could be used in the future please contact us.
Epsom Wells Community Association
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Epsom Wells Community Association 