Tell us what you want for young people in city

In your article it was stated that the Wiltshire Council Youth Service had been disbanded. This is not the case, the Targeted Youth Service which works with vulnerable young people is still running as usual. Also the Bridging project which works with disabled young people is continuing. What has changed is the way we deliver open access youth provision and where we provide them.

To take Salisbury as an example, the two buildings from which youth services were provided (Wilton Road and Grosvenor House) are being closed. This has been planned for several years as we intend to move the provision of youth services, including Bass Connections, into the new Five Rivers Campus.

Because of the budgetary pressures we are under (the council’s budget from Central Government has now been cut by about 40 per cent) they have been closed a year earlier than planned in Salisbury. The Five Rivers Campus will have a dedicated room for the Bass Connections equipment and after discussions with the cabinet member we have been able to keep part of Grosvenor House open to maintain Bass Connections until then.

I think it is fair to say that the area board views Bass Connections as a vital part of the youth offer in Salisbury (I certainly do) and we want to retain it. The area board has come up with a way to achieve this that involves using a private company, we are told that no other options are available at the moment.

I am not entirely comfortable with this, there is a community group forming who want to run Bass Connections and we should talk to them about how they could help do this. On balance however I want to make sure that Bass Connections keeps going until next year and I hope that Cabinet will approve a slightly unorthodox (in area board terms) way of providing it.

There is also a significant change in the way we are providing an open access youth service (one that is there to cater to all young people and not just those who are vulnerable).

The existing youth service has not proved able to engage the majority of Wiltshire’s Young People, in some areas only two per cent of the population have been using the service. While I was portfolio holder for youth and skills (about four years ago) we set up a scheme to help people who wanted to get community-based youth groups running. These are supported by the council but not run by them and where they have opened (mostly in our villages) they have been very successful, attracting 80 per cent-plus of young people in an area and are being run by the community.

We have therefore decided to provide each area board with funding to support and encourage the provision of open access youth services in each community area in a way that best suits young people in that area. A full-time professional youth worker has been retained in each area to help deliver this and to make sure that targeted services are linking properly with other services for young people (mostly schools). We (the area boards) have been tasked to consult with young people about the open access activities that they want to see delivered, not just what elderly politicians want to provide.

During the consultation process on the current changes it was very clear from young people that the vast majority I spoke to had not heard of the youth service (or the unit) and had very different views about the activities they wanted to see.

Cllr Rogers says the council does not know what young people want and that is entirely the point. The council doesn’t know, Councillors on the area board don’t know (although it appears some have made up their mind without talking to young people). Cllr Rogers does not know, I don’t know.

The only people who really know are young people themselves and it is their voice we now need to hear. The area board has a lot of money to spend on youth services and I am very keen to make sure we spend them on activities and services that all our young people want, not the pet projects of councillors. We will do a great disservice to our young people if we turn the way in which the area board spends its budget for youth services into a political fight and comments like those in the article last week are not helpful to our young people.

Richard Clewer

Wiltshire Councillor

St Paul's Ward

Salisbury

Portfolio Holder for Housing