Backing for teenagers' fight to save youth club

Bramley Youth Centre was packed for a meeting at which Rotherham Borough Council defended its decision to close 11 youth centres by July.

A petition bearing 1,375 signatures was handed over at the meeting at which Bramley Parish Council said it was “positively committed” to saving the Flash Lane Centre.

Chairman Malcolm Brown said: “Over this last week we have been working very hard on ways to keep the youth club available for the local community.

“It must to be remembered that this club was actually built and greatly paid for by the community 50 years ago. It is extremely well used. RMBC’s claim that as few as only six people being the average attendance is utterly refuted by the local community.”

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Bramley Youth Centre is currently leased by the parish to the borough council, which runs it as a charitable trust.

The parish council understood the need to find savings, Cllr Brown said, which is why they were exploring the notion of taking over building management and maintenance.

But he added: “We simply do not have the funds to pay for staff and RMBC needs to review its position on this issue.”

Closing 11 centres will save £400,000 as the borough council slices £30 million from this year’s budget.

Conservative Borough Cllr John Turner said: “Decisions such as this are made at Cabinet level and then officers have to translate them to the public and, paradoxically, get all the punishment for it.

“There were some very vocal and angry people at the meeting and the officers were left to carry the can.”

He added that the public perception continued to be that Bramley was being singled out for “bad treatment.”

He added: “There was the traffic scheme, the Flash Lane zebra crossing farce and now this. Money always used to go on places of most need but for some reason this area, including Flanderwell and Sunnyside, has dropped out of the formula.”

Fellow Tory Cllr Martyn Parker disputed the average attendance figure of only ten teenagers, quoted by borough council leader Roger Stone.

He said: “It’s a legal requirement for centres to keep attendance figures and they show between 20 and 40 turning up to every session.

“The cost of building and refurbishing council offices has been astronomical but they can’t find £400,000 to keep youth centres open.”

Spending £325,000 on five mobile youth club buses was criticised because the vehicles have not been a success in the past. One parked in Wickersley last weekend failed to attract one youngster, the meeting heard.

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