From a single bench outside his home to a growing network of libraries, planters, and bird boxes, Alex Russell-Bates is reimagining Ruislip’s streets with a DIY spirit and a vision for better community infrastructure.

Outside of 33 year old Alex Russell-Bates’ home in Ruislip, there’s a single bus stop. No shelter, no seating – just a sign post by the roadside. 

For a long time, he had watched elderly passengers wait there, often forced to lean on a nearby bin, or stand up awkwardly – exposed to the elements. 

Determined to change that, Alex used wood from his recently dismantled garden deck and built a simple bench for the stop in October 2023. This small act of kindness became the first project of many for what would become The Ruislip Urbanists. 

“I just put this thing together and put it out there and every day I left my house, I’d see people sitting on it.” Alex says. “It made me feel so happy – the fact that it was working and the people were using it and were obviously pleased it was there.

“It was see thing, do thing. The positive feedback loop was simply seeing people sit on it. It’s what made me do another one.”

Alex admits that his first bench was overbuilt, and something that an actual craftsman would ‘have absolutely cringed at.’

But that didn’t stop him. Driven by a desire to make his local area more inclusive and accessible, Alex kept going – bench by bench. 

Alex’s father-in-law owns a small sawmill, but he often turns down the offer of ‘good wood’, preferring instead to scavenge and repurpose wood he finds locally, a decision rooted in an ideology of sustainability.

He explains: “The wood I use has an inherent value because of the tree that grew to make this and I want to do that justice. I don’t want it to be a lovely redwood pine that gets thrown away and never gets the proper treatment it deserves. I want to know if it’s going somewhere good.”

After a few benches, Alex officially set up an Instagram account for the Ruislip Urbanists, creating a hub for people to get in touch and suggest where more benches should be placed, or to alert him if maintenance needed to be done on one. He began tagging his benches with the account to drive people to the right places. 

The model is inspired heavily by similar groups in the US, like the Chattanooga Urbanist Society who have guided the way Alex operates his own urbanist organisation. 

Despite the inspiration, Alex has been managing his entire operation independently.

“All the installations have been my own work,” Alex says, “I have collaborated with local artists before for two of the three libraries I’ve made. I just reached out to people who followed the Instagram. 

“One time a young woman stepped up. She wanted to go into art and thought this would be great for her portfolio. She had it for about three weeks before I came to pick it up. I love this process.”

Since that first bench, Alex has continued to grow his operations further and further – building local libraries, planters, and bird boxes, (although according to Alex, there has yet to be ‘any birds using them.’). His final count of all four types of pieces was seventeen.

These libraries operate as a communal hub and offer local residents the chance to give away some of their used and read books so that another can pick them up and read them. 

And it’s this community that Alex says motivates him to keep going:

“It’s about hoping that people care a bit more about where they are and maybe meet or interact with people.” Alex shares. “It’s been good for me because it lets me meet people in the area, because I didn’t really know anybody and I’ve been here for like five years.

“I’m a very strong believer that little changes can make a big difference in shaping people’s environments and the way they live within it. Once you get a few more people out on the street, it sort of compounds on itself because you have a better chance that you’re gonna bump into somebody.”

Maintaining the various pieces scattered around Ruislip has been incredibly easy for Alex, who – after receiving a message about a broken piece through Instagram – will pop down to fix it, to find somebody has beaten him to it.

“Sometimes, somebody has always gone and fixed it up before I got there.” Alex says, “Usually it’s a temporary fix, but It’s really encouraging to see the people who obviously sort of live nearby have taken their own kind of ownership of it and they do actually value it.”

He recalls an earlier time when he was trying to maintain a bench and, whilst retrieving it for repair, he was stopped by a passerby – someone who thought Alex was trying to steal it.

After Alex explained the situation, the man began to praise his work, telling him how helpful the bench was and alerting him that the local council had been taking benches away. 

In fact, it’s the council that poses the biggest challenge to the Ruislip Urbanists, with them often taking away Alex’s benches without notice or returning them to him. 

To the council, the benches could pose a safety hazard and local residents may expect the council to be the ones paying if they need maintenance or upkeep – ‘whether or not they want to,’ or Alex wants to be. 

“I don’t want these things to be a hazard to anyone,” Alex says, “But, I’m also not a health and safety trained person and I don’t have the resources that a real installation in the public realm would have.

“By doing something like this you could be showing the council what they SHOULD be doing, but I don’t really do it that way. It’s just a case of – this COULD be here.”

He added: “I know basically every council in the country is drowning in underfunding, so I don’t expect them to be doing this. It would just be nice for people to be able to step up and help.”

The bird boxes, libraries, and planters have remained unmoved – asserting that this definitely is a safety issue, even despite Alex’s dedication to rounding out the edges and removing any screws that are sticking out.

He hopes to one day have more in-depth with the council and offer a solution; attaching the benches to the ground, to stop them from moving and hopefully making them feel more calm about it all. 

The project has been one that largely exists in Alex’s free time – during quiet hours when he works from home, or around the end of his paternity leave – but it’s something he definitely wants to pursue further and more professionally.

He says: “I am in the process of trying to pivot my career and am looking for work in a council or something of this ilk. The dream job would be ‘Safe Streets’ or Trees for Streets programs.”

This is a passion for Alex – something that is destined to extend beyond his local area and help communities all over. 

He’s created something in Ruislip that was once missing. Through his benches, he’s turned the Ruislip Urbanists from one man on a mission, to a whole community – supporting each other through their desire for better social infrastructure.