A fire at Claygate Recreation Ground on Saturday evening (7th April 2018) has destroyed a storage building used by Claygate Cricket Club for their junior cricket equipment.
This follows the devastating fire which completely destroyed Claygate’s Community Clubhouse in November 2016. After investigation, the Fire Service reported the cause of that fire as ‘wilful damage’.
The storage building was situated at the rear of the clubhouse, behind 8’ foot fencing and in a secure and locked enclosure. It was completely destroyed by fire and its contents are a total loss.

Claygate Cricket Club used the building principally for storage of junior cricket kit, but outside furniture was also kept there. The club are already compiling an inventory for a potential insurance claim.

The fire was spotted soon after 6pm on Saturday evening and Surrey Fire Services were quickly in attendance and extinguished the fire. Surrey Police also attended the scene and are making further enquiries.

It was almost certainly started deliberately.

“This is terribly sad news and another destructive event for the Club,” said CCC President Nigel Abbott. “We suffered the blow of losing our relatively new clubhouse two years ago and despite the fact that we have come back extremely strongly, that had an enormous impact on us. This is nowhere near the same level or scale of destruction, but we are now faced with the loss of the equipment which enabled us to operate our junior sides.
”We will aim to run our junior training and matches this season, but will make a further announcement about this shortly when the situation has been fully assessed.

“It is early days, but we have further lessons to learn when we come to the final design and planning for the new clubhouse building.

“It’s also sad and worrying for the broader community because it appears to be an event caused by deliberate damage.”

Over the last 10 years, Claygate has put significant effort and investment into developing its junior sides. The club run’s 7 sides from ages 9 to 18 as well as cricket training for 5-8 year olds including ECB’s All Stars programme – in all about 100 youngsters.
Claygate is linked to local primary schools, running cricket training sessions at Claygate Primary School and Esher Church School and in addition hosts (over a number of years) regional Kwik Cricket competitions featuring local primary schools.