Hillcrest & Hensingham Forum Area

Community Activity

The residents on the mainly council estates in the Hensingham area have set up a Community Action Group. This group of concerned residents with the help of the police and the local community officers set up the action group to eradicate vandalism, under-age drinking etc plus drug dealers who had set up in the area. The group and police placed a post box in the local shop where residents could inform police of crimes anonymously without the fear of reprisals. The next thing was to get the local teenagers off the streets where they were causing a nuisance and get them into more constructive activities. This has been achieved with summer activity schemes and they are now in the process of setting up a youth club. For more information contact: Sue King on 01946 691176.

Forum Area

The Hillcrest & Hensingham Forum area is on hills that spreads across from the north of Whitehaven to the very south of Whitehaven.

The two largest schools in the area Whitehaven and St Benedicts Roman Catholic are situated in close proximately to one another at the very edge of the area. The large West Cumberland Hospital that covers the whole of Copeland is also in the Hensingham area. There are a couple of industrial estates that rent out units to various small companies and there are also a couple of factories that have been in production for over fifty years.

The population of the forum area is approximately 6,800 the majority living in privately owned houses. The old Hensingham village area consists of large Georgian houses and smaller terraced ones with newer individual built houses in-between. The area south then spreads out onto council estates with quite a few privately owned houses. The north end of the village is the Hillcrest area where all the houses are privately built and owned.

Traffic calming is a major issue in the area, as well as the two large secondary schools there is also two primary schools, in all there is about 3,000+ children going to school about the same time, so the estates have become `Rat Runs'. There are also plans to build several hundred new homes in the Hillcrest area, these plans are not welcomed as residents feel there isn't the infrastructure to cope with the extra problems the new houses would bring. The Hillcrest & Hensingham Neighbourhood Forum is holding a special meeting mid December to discuss these proposals with residents.