Surrey Fire and Rescue opens Woodhatch Place today, 11am to 3pm, with a quieter 10am hour. No booking needed, no dogs, and about 400 parking spaces.

Surrey Fire and Rescue Service holds its Service Open Day in Reigate today, Saturday 22 August, from 11am to 3pm. It is free, and there is no need to book.

The venue is Woodhatch Place, 11 Cockshot Hill, Woodhatch, Reigate RH2 8EF. That is Surrey County Council’s headquarters on the A217, not a fire station.

There is also a quieter session first. The service runs an Additional Needs and Disabilities hour from 10am to 11am, before the main opening (Surrey County Council).

The practical details

  • Date and time: Saturday 22 August, 11am to 3pm
  • Additional Needs and Disabilities hour: 10am to 11am
  • Where: Woodhatch Place, 11 Cockshot Hill, Woodhatch, Reigate RH2 8EF
  • Booking: none. The council says “just turn up within the start and finish times”
  • Cost: the page lists no charge
  • Dogs: not allowed. The council says dogs are barred from its open days this year “due to health and safety restrictions”

The service describes its open days as a chance “to see the range of activities involved with being a modern firefighter, to learn about our crews, see our fire engines, and learn about fire safety”. It does not publish a running order for this event, so we cannot tell you which appliances or demonstrations will be there.

Parking, and a wrinkle worth knowing

The open days page carries a blanket warning that there is no parking “at any of our fire stations for these events unless stated otherwise”. Woodhatch Place is not a fire station, and the council’s own page for the building tells a different story.

That page says there are “approximately 400 car parking spaces and visitors are welcome to park”. It also lists eight blue badge spaces and four electric car charging points, just before the front of the building (Surrey County Council, Woodhatch Place).

Two caveats. The building page was last reviewed on 30 January 2025, and it is written for weekday office visits: reception is normally closed at weekends. Treat the 400 spaces as the site’s usual capacity rather than a promise for today.

The council asks people to “travel by public transport if possible”. If you are coming that way:

  • By train: Reigate is the nearest station, about a 25-minute walk
  • By bus: the 430 and 435 serve the route and can also be boarded in Redhill. Alight at The Angel stop, Woodhatch, leaving a five to ten minute walk

What we could not confirm

The Surrey Fire Museum has been mentioned locally in connection with today’s event. We could not verify that from a first-party source.

The museum is run by the Fire Brigades of Surrey Preservation Trust, a registered charity in Reigate, number 297162. Its stated purpose includes maintaining “a collection of fire service appliances, memorabilia, photographs, records and other artifacts associated with the fire brigades within Surrey” (Charity Commission).

The trust’s own website no longer resolves. Neither the county council’s open days page nor its Woodhatch Place page mentions the museum. We are not going to state that the collection will be on show when no official source says so.

If you miss it, these are the last two of the year

Today is the only Reigate-area date in the 2026 programme. Two open days remain, both outside the borough:

  • Cranleigh Fire Station, Saturday 5 September, Dewlands Lane, Cranleigh GU6 7AD
  • Leatherhead Fire Station, Sunday 20 September, Cobham Road, Fetcham, Leatherhead KT22 9AW

Both run 11am to 3pm with the same 10am to 11am Additional Needs and Disabilities hour, and the same rules on booking, parking and dogs.

Timeline of Surrey Fire and Rescue Service open days in 2026: Haslemere 4 May, Egham 13 June, Painshill 25 July, Woking 1 August, Service Open Day at Woodhatch Place Reigate 22 August, Cranleigh 5 September and Leatherhead 20 September

There is also a charity car wash at Walton Fire Station on Saturday 12 September, 10am to 3pm, raising money for the Firefighters Charity. The council lists no water and wildfire events and no “have a go” recruitment days at present. Its open days page was last reviewed on 10 June 2026, so check the service’s own channels before travelling in case anything changes.

What it means for you

For families in Reigate, Redhill and Woodhatch this is one of the few days in the year when the service opens a site locally. The published programme lists no other borough date in 2026.

The 10am hour is the detail worth passing on. If noise, crowds or queueing are a problem for someone in your household, that quiet hour exists for exactly that, and it starts before everyone else arrives.

Crew attendance at fire service events is always subject to emergency call outs, as the council notes for its outdoor safety days. A shout is a shout.

Sources

More Reigate information: parking, roadworks and travel and things to do.