REDHOUSE Way may be less than 10 years old, but what it lacks in years, it makes up for in its strong sense of community.

Nestling within the village of Priory Vale, Redhouse takes its name from the farmland and fields that lay there in the 1700s.

In 2005, the building of the Priory Vale Learning Campus started. It included two new schools at the end of Redhouse Way – Red Oaks Primary School and Isambard Community School.

Red Oaks opened in September 2006 and caters for children from nursery age through to the end of primary.

The first day saw King George XI (aka Roger Day) leading the children through a story that culminated in planting a magic silver acorn. Children's TV personality Dave Benson-Phillips joined the king and pupils for the ceremony.

Nine-year-old Red Oaks pupil Leah Mcgahey has lived in Redhouse Way for several years. She said: “I like living on the same street as my school because I have lots of friends here.”

Ten-year-old Georgia Hewes has lived with her family next to the street for four years.

“I love coming to school at Red Oaks because we do lots of fun things, like ICT with the laptops and gym. On Wednesdays we do a carousel when we all rotate different activities.”

Maxine Janes, 41, lives on the street with her 19-year-old daughter Chelsie, having moved from Spain two years ago.

“I chose Redhouse Way because we wanted a brand new house and I love all the facilities that are around,” said Maxine.

“I’m a teaching assistant at Red Oaks School too, so it’s handy for work.

“I know a lot of my neighbours because a lot of them have children that go to the school. Apart from the traffic, I enjoy living here. At the end of the school day the buses find it difficult to get by because of the parked cars. It should really be a 10 or 20mph road, not 30mph.

“The village centre is great, it’s very convenient for the residents.”

The Redhouse village centre, which backs on to rows of apartments, coach houses and detached family homes, boasts a dental practice, hair salon, takeaway and Tesco Express, with room for more businesses to open.

The Works hair salon was the first business to open there in September 2007. Hundreds of residents attended the opening.

However, part-owner Sheila Edwards, 41, said opening a business in the middle of a new and emerging estate was, at first, challenging.

“We were the first business to open in the middle of a building site, with mounds of mud all around us,” she said.

“It was quite difficult at first, and even on the open day when everyone came to visit we didn’t even have a car park.

“We have a large clientele now and we get to know a lot of people from Redhouse here. It’s a good community.”

Next door is the Priory Vale Dental Practice, which opened its doors on April 7, 2008.

Dentist Foad Abbassian said: “Redhouse has a great community – we have a total of 6,800 patients on our books and we get about 15 new patients a day, so we know lots of people around here.”

Receptionist Pamela Mercury, who lives in Oakhurst, said: “When you are doing the school run around here you bump in to lots of people along Redhouse Way. You get to know a lot of people.”