Chiswick High Road Protest Over Youth Centre Closures

Local residents take to the streets this weekend to fight cutbacks

Around 100 young people, parents and other members of the community took to the streets Chiswick this Saturday (18 March) to continue the campaign to save Hounslow Youth Services.

They handed out fliers to people people on the High Road and received widespread encouragement from passersby including from Bonnie Langford and Tim Lovejoy.

Supporters of the the campaign met at the Hogarth Youth Centre on Duke Road in the morning and marched along the High Road before joining a combined protest by local groups in the borough at the Hounslow Youth Centre. They say they have seen the impact closing youth centres has had in other boroughs and were marching to protect the services.

Parents of young people who use the services are calling on the community to support them by signing an online petition. They are objecting to council plans to reduce the youth budget by £650,000 which mean that they will no longer employ staff on site at its five youth centres across the borough.

Instead, a team of "detached youth workers" will support young people on estates by doing street work. They will use community buildings based on levels of need. The centre in Duke Road is managed by the charitable Hogarth Trust and partly funded by Hounslow Council.

The public consultation which proposed to cut the youth services by £438,000 ended on the 6 March. The campaigners are not happy with the way the consultation was delivered and say they do not feel that their voices have been heard. They have already held a protest outside the civic centre on the 21 February.

Chiswick parent Sarah Harvey, said, “We made such a noise that the leader of the council came out and invited some of our representatives in to answer questions.

“He tried to persuade us that the councillors were not there to discuss the youth service but were there to discuss future budgets, but our representatives argued that we were there at the perfect time as we wanted youth centres to be included in future budgets.”

Hogarth Youth Centre

The campaigners say that this is a wide-scale issue across London and that support and facilities for young people have been disappearing. Sian Berry Green Party Member of the London Assembly's report on ‘London’s lost youth services’ highlights the dramatic cuts to young people across London and the impact it will have.

“Good quality youth services help prevent young people from falling into crime and also make them less vulnerable to the exploitation of groups like gangs” she says.

“The new Mayor’s draft Police and Crime Plan says that ‘prevention is key to protecting young people and reducing crime over the long term.’ But can plans for prevention work if council support for young people is fading away?"

The Council says its shortfall in central funding means it has to direct money towards other areas such as youth counselling and respite for young carers in the borough. The £212,000 in its budget will also support mobile outreach for 'hot spot' areas of need, the Duke of Edinburgh scheme, and the Good Shepherd project for young people in Hounslow Barracks who are isolated due to frequent re-location.

The Council says that young people will still be able to access a range of services provided by organisations such as schools, churches, leisure centres, libraries, apprenticeship providers, as well as local authority services such as the 14-19 service and its counselling service.

The Centre provides a range of youth programmes for young people aged 8-21. This includes Junior Club for 8 – 11 year olds, Intermediates Club for young people in Years 7, 8 and 9 and Senior Youth Club for 11-21 year olds. A range of activities include cooking, table tennis, football, dance, arts and crafts, board games, volleyball and more. It also provides holiday programmes, trips and other opportunities for young people.

March 20, 2017