What you've told us
The main themes identified through the Community Investment Plan (CIP) review carried out in January 2025, are to continue to focus on the original priorities that were highlighted when the CIP was created in 2024.
The recent review showed a strong focus towards tackling youth Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) and community safety issues within our communities. Suggestions of providing youth provision, educating young people, enabling behaviour change, and improving street lighting and police presence being a few themes to focus on.
The lack of parking available is also a key area that many residents are frustrated by within Great Hollands. There is not enough parking available for the number of properties in many of the estates, causing irresponsible parking and behaviours.
Despite these, it's clear many residents feel like they have good connections with their neighbours, enjoy the vast green spaces available throughout, and would generally rate the area as a good place to live.
We’ll continue to work with local residents, colleagues, organisations and public sector organisations to focus on these issues to improve our communities.
Your priorities
- Working with our Estates and Landscapes teams and the community to improve the look and feel of the area.
- Working with local agencies on addressing support for young people and issues around use of e-scooters.
- Supporting customers with employment advice, including signposting and information about qualifications available, and how much these might cost.
- Focused interventions to help support our customers and communities with the impact of the cost-of-living crisis.
- Coordinating with Bracknell Forest Council’s Health and Wellbeing Strategy to better promote the health of our residents in Great Hollands.
Who is your Community Development Officer?
I’m Gabi Hoskin, Community Development Officer for the Great Hollands area. I’ve always worked with people throughout my career. Previously, I carried out research in the charity and higher education sectors, always keen to adopt a bottom-up approach rather than going in with a prescribed notion of community needs. We’re lucky to have a good spread of community facilities in Great Hollands. Community development is a complex field but often people simply need a space in which to interact. My role gives me the opportunity to work with an array of partners to foster focus for communities.
You said, we did
You said:
We know through the CIP reviews that community safety and in particular youth ASB are key challenges that the community would like to address.
We did:
We’ve created the two youth projects mentioned below to tackle this issue.
You said:
The poor waste disposal issues continue to be a consistent problem.
We did:
We’re continuing with regular community action days and trialling some community litter picks with the view of creating a litter picking group for consistency.
What are we working on in Great Hollands?
- ‘The Opportunities HUB’ now runs from the Look In Café, 2 Great Hollands Square, Bracknell RG12 8UX, (previously listed as the Library for location and Employment and Support Hub).
- Football sessions for young people – run by Brentford FC as part of the Premier League Kicks programme. Sessions take place every Wednesday for 11-18 year olds, 5.30-7pm, at Great Hollands Pavilion, South Road, Bracknell RG40 3EE.
- Running of the Mobile Community Pantry has been paused while SHARE take over this commitment, they hope to have it re-started by September.
- We are working on the return of the Good Grub Club and Energy Efficient Cooking Classes but dates are not yet set, please check back here soon.
What's been happening in your area?
Long term projects kick start
Two longer term projects have started in recent months. The South Hill Park e-scooter arts exhibition project and the premier league kicks programme. Both have been in planning stages over the last year so we're very pleased to see them come to fruition. Four Abri residents are so far onboard and enjoying their involvement so far.
Holbeck litter pick
Following the success of the Great British Spring Clean, we held another litter pick in Holbeck following a request from the housing partner that it was in need of a clean-up. We had three residents attend to help and removed 11 bags of litter along with a caged van load of bulky waste.
Community Action Day at MGM
This event took place on Wednesday 28 May. We engaged with 16 customers while promoting our upcoming cooking workshops, with 4 future sign-ups. We removed several fly tipping items and boarded up an area to reduce future fly tipping. We also completed a local community litter pick, collecting four large bags of rubbish, meaning that in total we removed a large filled caged van of rubbish and unwanted items from this neighbourhood. A few minor repairs such as communal lighting issues were reported and we received lots of positive comments about how tasty the food was provided by Community Chef.
Series of litter pick events
We ran a series of litter picking events in Great Hollands in partnership with Keep Britain Tidy as part of their Great British Spring Clean campaign. We ran two events ourselves with 21 people taking part. We removed two caged van loads of dumped items and collected 24 full bags of litter.
We also took part in a partner led event run by Bracknell Town Council. This event had 46 people attend in total with 24 bags of litter collected and removed from the Great Hollands area.
Following on from this, we are looking at creating a litter picking group specifically targeting Great Hollands where we can hold regular litter picks to tackle the waste management issue felt across all of the ward.
What's coming up?
Summer of Fun event in Great Hollands
Run by Bracknell Town Council, we’ll be promoting our support services and meeting the local community to hear about their views and how we can help. Come and join the fun with circus skills, petting farm, and giant inflatables. Great fun for all the family, the event takes place Wednesday 6 August 11am-3pm, Great Hollands Recreation Ground, RG40 3EE.
Cultural Kitchen Workshops
We’ll be running Culture Kitchen Workshops from August to December, to promote inclusivity and awareness, whilst also teaching new skills and bringing the community together. The workshops will include a takeaway and a shared meal for all participants and there will be a community feast as well in March 2026.
This project is open to the first eight entrants who will each attend all the workshops. The community feast will include attendants from other projects Community Chef has been involved with. Dates to be announced.
