Local youth services saved

At last night’s Frome Vale Area Forum, your Focus Team voted to protect youth funding for the Frampton Cotterell, Coalpit Heath and Westerleigh area and support a new project at Transition Skate.

Following the controversial closure of the Brockeridge Youth Club at the end of last May, Frampton Cotterell Parish Council has had to hand back more than £3,000 they were granted by the Area Forum to provide the service throughout 2014/15. Your Focus Team won the backing of their colleagues to earmark this money for youth provision in 2015/16 in Frampton Cotterell, Coalpit Heath and Westerleigh, rather than being spent elsewhere.

Dave Hockey said, “Having been closed for nearly a year, it’s going to take a real effort to kickstart the new club. This is likely to need some outreach work to make contact with young people when they are out and about around our villages. Frampton Cotterell Parish Council has invested in local young people since the Brockeridge Youth Club was opened in May 2000. The working group was hugely impressed by what we saw at Chipping Sodbury Youth Club, I hope it’s opened my Parish Council colleagues’ eyes to what can be achieved and that they will put in a really strong application to make best use of the funding that we agreed to earmark.”

Claire Young said, “Last year I investigated where the young people from my ward were going for youth activities, so I know the Brockeridge Youth Club was attended by people from Coalpit Heath as well as Frampton Cotterell. It would be fantastic if outreach work could help the young people in the surrounding rural areas too.”

Councillors also voted to give £3750 to Transition Skate, based in the old Fromeside Youth Centre, to run a project working with local schools and providing a mentoring service. The project would engage with young people with challenging behaviour or at risk of being excluded.