Tandridge Leisure is celebrating after the 'Surrey Creative Communities' project won high praise for a twoyear project designed to bring communities together across Surrey.

One of the highlights was the Caterham Film Project where school children interviewed local elders and turned their stories into drama pieces which were recorded on film and premiered at last summer's Caterham Festival.

The Creative Communities project, developed in partnership with Farnham Maltings, sent artists into nine boroughs to empower and encourage people to explore the arts. Its positive impact has led to a high commendation from the South East Empowerment Awards where it was nominated as one of the four finalists.

Each community, which also included Ash, Haslemere, Epsom, North Holmwood, Elmbridge and Addlestone, developed very different activities to uncover the place where they lived, explore the identity of their community, meet new people, investigate their heritage and generally celebrate together.

The project was funded by the Surrey Arts Partnership of local authorities, Arts Council England through the lottery 'Grants for the Arts' programme and a number of local trusts and foundations.