Youth Provision Cuts

Camden has some excellent and award winning youth provision. These have been developed over the past 30 years with support from the Labour Council.

Grave Concerns

However, I am very concerned with the lack of awareness about youth issues of the Lib-Dem/Tory administration..  They are cutting funding for youth provision, yet they want to use the youth centres to promote their policies. What hypocrisy, Chris Huhne, MP and Lib-Dem Camden Council Leader Keith Moffitt and Executive Member Janet Grauberg praising the work of the Castlehaven Community Association yet cutting their funding for the provision of services to young people. As stated by the Chief Executive of CCA, Eleanor Botwright, “this funding cut means the centre could be looking at redundancies or downsizing”.  

This excellent project, as highlighted by the Lib-Dems, should be praised for it’s work and rewarded with funding not just words. Where’s the action to follow up those empty words.  Last year Camden Council had an underspend of over 10 million pounds. I would like to plead with the Lib-Dem/Tory administration to please, please spend some of that underspend on services for young people in some of the most deprived areas in Camden.

The Samuel Lithgow Youth Centre, in my ward, has also had it’s funding cut. This is an excellent project that has raised more than one million pounds to refurbish the youth centre only to be shocked by the news that the Council is cutting their revenue funding. This means that they will have an excellent facility but no youth workers to work with the young people. The Regent’s Park estate is an area that has had lots of problems with anti-social behaviour and youth conflict amongst young people but the work done by the Samuel Lithgow Youth Centre and the Surma Youth Centre has helped to reduce the anti-social behaviour and the youth conflict.

The Queen’s Crescent Community Association is yet another excellent project that has had it’s youth funding cut. This is in an area which has been at the centre of some horrific incidents of conflicts involving groups of young people. 

Young people are our future

For the past two years we have seen cuts in funding for generic youth work whilst Camden Council has had millions of pounds of underspend. We need to act to stop these cuts. We must campaign for more funding to support work with young people. Young people are our future.

Councillor Nasim Ali
Leader of Camden Labour Group
Labour Councillor for the Regent’s Park Ward

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