What happened to our youth service?

Andover’s residents have been shocked by Conservative run Hampshire County Council’s decision to all but wipe out Youth services, making professional staff redundant in the process. Staggeringly, the Conservatives stashed over £300,000,000 in the County bank while making the cuts!

Under the changes the Council will only provide services for ‘vulnerable’ young people such as those in care. There are many other young people needing support who may not get it at all.

Candy Huxham is Manager of the Handy Trust voluntary Youth Service in Waterside, Hampshire, and is currently Youth Worker of the ye r. Candy has strong reservations about the changes. Candy said, “We already help and advise many vulnerable oungsters in our local community but we don’t come into contact with all of them. They often tell us that there are others who we don’t see who are still in bed or don’t bother. Now there is no Connexions service and no system to account for youngsters like there was.

Unemployment of young people is the highest on record. For many it is a bad time to be young. It is certainly no time for the County Council Conservatives to walk away.

Hampshire County Council is a very large organisation with over £300,000,000 in the County bank. Some of this money should be used as a priority to provide a Youth Service as well as full apprenticeships for our young people. The County are letting down our next generation

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *