Volunteers helping former guiding centre reopen

An outdoor activity centre is to reopen later this month after being saved by volunteers.

Foxlease in Lyndhurst, Hampshire, was owned by Girlguiding for more than 100 years but in May 2023 the organisation announced plans to sell off its five activity centres.

Volunteers from a group of supporters called Foxie's Future managed to raise the £4.2m to buy the New Forest site.

The first residential visitors are arriving at the rebranded Foxlease Park in three weeks and more than 100 bookings have already been made for this year.

The community interest company has no paid staff and is run entirely by volunteers.

More than 145 people have worked on the site since mid-November, clocking up nearly 3,000 volunteer hours.

"They have lifted, shifted, carried, cleaned, repaired, restored, done gardening, plumbing, electrical work, we've had free help from tradespeople, that's the whole way it is happening at the moment, mass volunteering" said Emma Stevens, one of the trustees.

The group is opening the purpose built residential blocks in the grounds to visitors first, with the campsites ready by the summer season.

The original Georgian house is expected to be suitable for visitors in the autumn.

Volunteer Janet Russell from Bracknell was involved in painting in one of the newer residential blocks.

She's a Guide leader and says it's so important for young people to have places like this: "We can provide different activities which you can't do in a town or city, it's a lovely place to come.

"I came here in the 1960s as a child and want others to have the opportunities."

Another volunteer, Dot Brown, travelled from north Wiltshire to help with cleaning.

"I've been scrubbing an oven and found some old pizza and chips, which was a bit disgusting! But I don't mind, I want to do my bit to get this beautiful place open so we can start to share it with visitors and the community," she said.

The site is available to hire to groups including guides, scouts, uniformed groups, societies and organisations.

The money needed to buy Foxlease came from a £1.78m community ownership grant, a community loan scheme, crowdfunding and other grants.

But the community ownership fund was closed by the Labour government in late December.

In a statement, the government said: "Due to the challenging inheritance left by the previous (Conservative) government we have taken the difficult decision to close the fund.

"But we are introducing new powers to help local people take control of valued community spaces."

Trustee Emma Stevens said: "For us that community ownership grant was vital and we couldn't have bought this site without it.

"We'd have been done and this place would have been sold to a private commercial bidder which would have been a real shame.

"It's a loss for communities that fund is going."

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