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New Sugar & Ronson care campus offers a warm welcome to Redbridge community
Salt-beef, yoga, ukelele, dementia care and mental health support: the £24.7 million purpose-built complex is more than just a home
Wednesday night was a nostalgic salt-beef special for 140 people at Jewish Care’s state-of-the-art Sugar & Ronson Campus in Redbridge, the newly opened site bringing together care, community and support services under one roof for the local Jewish community.
After three years of building at a cost of £24.7 million, the first residents moved in on 10 August. Since then, the campus has been warmly welcoming members and visitors from across Essex and north east London, offering beds for 66 occupants, and providing nursing, dementia and end-of-life care, community services, mental health support and dementia programmes in a purpose-built environment designed to serve generations to come.
With the Sugar and Ronson families being “cornerstone donors”, the Woodford Bridge Road campus includes The Sugar Family Care Home (replacing Jewish Care’s Vi & John Rubens House in Gants Hill, which was built in 1982), the Ronson Community Centre (replacing the Redbridge Jewish Community Centre – Sinclair House, built in 1969), and The Dennis Centre for people living with dementia.
It also serves a base for Jami’s mental health services, Meals on Wheels volunteers and Jewish Care’s social work and community support team.
The ambitious and carefully considered plans have paid off: once inside, visitors are welcomed to a spacious lounge featuring a range of Judaica in smart cabinets, brand-new art books displayed on coffee tables and artwork featuring local pictures from the East End and images of Israel.
The dining area welcomes residents with place-names to encourage a sense of belonging and familiarity; when Jewish News visits, a group of friends are enthusiastically taking on a few games of table tennis, lunch is being prepared and upstairs a resident is having her hair done in the salon by a volunteer.
The Community Centre is also home to two kosher cafés, the only supervised kosher eateries in the area, providing welcoming spaces for people to meet over breakfast, coffee, lunch and conversation. From January 2027, the Centre will also be available to hire for simchas, meetings and community gatherings.
Outside are beautiful gardens backing onto the football pitch of a local school, with hopes for developing meaningful relationships between the older and younger generations in the future.
Jewish News met the soon to be 91-year old Myrna Capaloff, who moved in two weeks ago from Vi & John Rubens House in Gants Hill. Bent over in concentration on her armchair, she’s happily knitting from a bag bursting with balls of bright green yarn; her room, which she happily describes as more of a “living room”, is filled with photographs of her children, grand-children and great-grandchildren.
A self-confessed book-worm, she confesses “the one I’m reading at the moment, I will be very pleased to finish. I don’t like it. It’s about the war in Spain and it’s dreadful.” Lynda La Plante, on the other hand, is a firm favourite.
Apologising for asking for questions to be repeated, she says she’s “very naughty” and doesn’t wear her hearing aids. “I just can’t get on with them,” she adds. Moving on to football, she sighs deeply, saying that “unfortunately, Spurs aren’t the team they were. My father would have been mortified at what was going on with them.”
Myrna’s friends include “the people who sit at my table. There’s one man called Malcolm, who was beautiful as a little boy. We’ve got a picture of him in the dining room.”
Her favourite part of living at the new campus is her room. “It’s not a little room. It’s almost like a bed-sit. Look,” she says, leaning from her chair to open the curtain blinds. “I’ve got a view. Look at this view. Of course, it’s raining, but you see the fields. Now, how many places would have a view like that. I’ve got a garden here.”
Her birthday is 3 September. “The Second World War started on my fourth birthday. That’s something that obviously I could never forget. But we did go away. We were evacuated (to Littleport, Cambridgeshire). Lovely people. We stayed friendly with them until they passed away.”
She recalls making cheesecake and honeycakes for Rosh Hashanah. When it comes to Shabbat, “I can tell you something quite strange about that. Being away in the country, we didn’t have Hebrew lessons. Obviously, I forgot all my Hebrew. But, and this is a big but, I remember the bracha for wine and every week here, when they (the volunteers) come round with the wine, I say it every week.”
“It’s up here,” she says, tapping the side of her head. “It’s just stuck in my head. It’s been nice to meet you,” she says. “Like meeting an old friend.”
Jewish Care chief executive Daniel Carmel-Brown said: “Seeing residents move into their new home and community members walk through the doors for the first time has been incredibly moving. Every part of the campus has been designed with Jewish life, community and connection in mind. Although the campus is new, the services are delivered by the staff and teams that people already know. This means continuity, familiarity and trusted relationships continue and this is at the heart of what makes Jewish Care unique. More than a campus, it is a community, and a place where people feel part of one big family.”
Acknowledging the generosity of the Sugar family and the Ronson family through The Gerald & Gail Ronson Family Foundation, “alongside our other key donors and the support of the local community”, he adds: “We are deeply grateful to everyone who has helped make this vision a reality and we look forward to seeing the friendships, connections and special moments that will be created here in the years ahead.”
New resident Corinne said: “It looks like a hotel. Never in a million years did I think I’d live in a place like this” while fellow resident Michael added: “The whole building is fabulous. There’s everything here and they’ve done a wonderful job. The garden’s gorgeous too.”
Table tennis player Howard Johnston said: “I’ve been coming here since I was 6. I used to come for ‘club’ and then as a teenager and I’ve been going along to table tennis for quite a while. It’s great to have this lovely new space to play and to be sociable.”
Meanwhile, The Dennis Centre for people living with dementia is providing specialist, person-centred support for people living with mild to moderate memory impairment or dementia, with members supported by trained staff and dedicated volunteers.
Rita, a member of the Centre, says, “It’s a huge improvement. The building is like a 5-star hotel. It’s wonderful and the staff can’t do enough for us.”
Maureen Valins, who volunteers in The Ronson Community Centre and The Sugar Family Care Home, says, “I love that everybody’s together in one building now!”
Sharon Imber, community events coordinator, adds, “Every week there are opportunities to get moving, have fun and spend time with others. Monday begins with a weekly walking group, bringing people together for exercise and conversation, followed by coffee in the café. Table tennis sessions take place twice a week, offering friendly competition for players of all abilities and an opportunity to socialise. Those looking to focus on health and wellbeing can also join weekly yoga and Pilates classes, with sessions designed to welcome all levels.”
She asks for a notable mention for the monthly Ladies Lunch Club, which “combines a delicious lunch with Kalooki, Rummikub and Scrabble, while The Wednesday Club offers a relaxed afternoon of lunch, board games and table tennis. The Salt Beef Suppers are very popular, as are our lively entertainment nights with timeless tribute acts like The Beatles to the Bee Gees and Britain’s Got Talent’s Jive Aces to get everyone up and dancing.”
Jewish News was, alas too early to sample the salt beef, but left assured that recommendations for a cheese-cake dessert evening would be taken under serious advisement.
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