YOUNG musicians are poised to return to Grosvenor House, Churchfields within the next fortnight.

Local firm Sound Emporium will run the youth music service for a year, with a £12,000 Wiltshire Council grant, secured by Salisbury Area Board.

The Rose Gale Trust is also funding one extra evening session a week.

It is not yet known whether highly-regarded youth project Bass Connection, which ran the sessions before Wiltshire Council scrapped its youth service, will be linked to the scheme.

Youth worker David Gray said he was looking forward to the return.

“Sound Emporium is intending to deliver what should be an excellent music provision for young people,” he said.

He added that Sound Emporium was “professional, enthusiastic and committed to enhancing musical enjoyment, developing all aspects of musical talent in young people”.

The city’s youth music service is set to move to a purpose-built studio at the new community campus at Five Rivers Leisure Centre in autumn next year, funded by Salisbury Area Board.

Chairman Ricky Rogers said he had been “sad and angry” with the decision to scrap youth services, but the area board could not go on fighting the council. “We have got to start afresh,” he said. We lost. That battle is gone.

“We have got to think a bit more positively now.”

 

Former Grosvenor House volunteer Rob Davies said he was overjoyed the service would continue.

“Grove was imperative to my growth as a musician,” he said. “Bands need an affordable place to practice as well as casual guidance by those with the skills to give it.”

Rob, who is on the Bass Connection steering group, said closing the service had left many young people with nowhere to go in the evenings.

Peter Williams, a trustee of three young people’s charities, blasted Wiltshire Council for “punishing young people” by delaying the re-launch.

The council had to make special allowances for Sound Emporium, which is not a charity, to take over the service, which caused the delay.

Large amounts of offensive graffiti aimed at the council must be removed from inside of Grosvenor House before the service can resume.