Last updated 09:51, Friday, 06 June 2008

Antisocial behaviour by young people, say police, is the biggest concern for neighbourhoods in north Cumbria. Adults regularly complain about teenagers hanging around the streets in the evenings causing trouble – or looking as though they might.

Brian Scowcroft

The teenagers themselves, however, complain that there is nowhere else for them to go and they have nothing better to do.

But in one town in England they seem to have come up with a solution to both these complaints. And now there are moves to try it in Carlisle.

The Bolton Lads’ and Girls’ Club is a youth club based in the centre of Bolton. But it is no ordinary youth club.

While some youth clubs are just rooms in church halls, this one is based in new, purpose-built premises constructed at a cost of £5 million.

While some have nothing more than a table-tennis table and a stereo in one corner, this one also boasts a fitness gym, a boxing gym, a performing arts studio, all-weather sports pitches, a hot meals cafe, arts and crafts rooms, an indoor climbing wall and a cyber cafe.

And while some youth clubs are open one or two nights a week, this one is open on weekdays from 3pm to 10pm and all day at weekends and during school holidays – all the hours when schools are shut.

It is immensely popular, with around 3,000 youngsters aged between eight and 21 coming every week.

At any given time it has 20 different activities on, and admission costs only 40p – making it affordable for everyone.

And it seems to work. Police report that it reduces crime and antisocial behaviour, and visitors to Bolton note that there are fewer teenagers hanging around outside shops and on street corners than in other places.

The Government has promised to provide £184 million for better youth facilities across England, in an attempt to tackle antisocial behaviour. And it is holding up Bolton Lads’ and Girls’ Club as an ideal example that other towns and cities could follow.

The plan is for Carlisle to be one of them.

On Monday a strategy day is being held at the Sands Centre in Carlisle to discuss the two new academies due to open in the city in September.

Hazel Blears MP, the secretary of state for communities and local government, will be the keynote speaker.

But one of the others issues up for discussion will be the plans for a new youth centre, called the Youth Zone, in the city.

Brian Scowcroft, chief sponsor of the Richard Rose Academy, lobbied the Government to bring one of five new Youth Zones to the city.

If plans are given the go-ahead, the main base would be at the Richard Rose Central Academy, which will open on the current St Aidan’s School site.

Mr Scowcroft said: “This has been a project that we have been thinking about for some time.

“We believe that it will be useful in dealing with some of the issues that we are currently seeing highlighted in the press.

“A shortage of youth facilities has been a national problem for some time and the successful set-up, development and operation of the Bolton Lads’ and Girls’ Club has long been my inspiration for potential spin-off activities for the academies and the communities they serve.”

Jeremy Glover, the chief executive of Bolton Lads’ and Girls’ Club, has been invited to address Monday’s meeting.

Mr Glover, 55, has 30 years’ experience working with young people. He is convinced that a similar club could do for Carlisle what it has done for Bolton.

“It has made a huge difference here,” Mr Glover said. “Without a doubt, as long as the fundamentals are right, such as the opening hours and the admission charge, then it would work in Carlisle.

“Young people just want somewhere safe to go where they can meet their friends, somewhere where they can take part in positive activities.

“In Bolton we don’t have the same numbers of kids hanging around street corners because this gives them an alternative.”

There are those who support a tougher approach to antisocial behaviour among youngsters, and believe greater discipline and stiffer punishments for crime and disorder are the answers.

But Mr Glover argues that prevention is better than cure – and prevention is what he says the Bolton club offers.

“The more engaged young people are with positive people and positive activities in a positive environment, then the more you reduce the chances of them getting in with the wrong crowd and causing trouble.

“That’s why we are open seven days a week. There is a lot of time during the week when young people are not at school.

“As adults we go to restaurants or pubs or the cinema in our leisure time, and we expect them to be open when we want them.

“That’s the level of service we need to provide for kids – to be open when they want them.”

The origins of the Bolton Lads’ and Girls’ Club date back to 1889, when similar clubs were established in many northern industrial towns for boys working in the mills.

Over time they developed into sports and recreation clubs and in 1991 the club was opened to girls as well.

However Mr Glover said: “What was holding us back was the horrible building we were working from.

“Clubs were often based in old, run-down premises.”

But thanks to £4 million of lottery money and £1 million of their own fundraising, the club was able to build new premises and facilities – and since then it has taken off.

“We were in the right place at the right time to get the lottery grant,” Mr Glover said.

“The new building opened in 2002 so we’ve been here six years now.

“We thought we would be busier than we were before, but nothing prepared us for the demand.

We’ve gone from 700 kids a week to 3,000.”

Mr Glover believes it is the standard of what is on offer that makes the club so popular, and brings so many youngsters off the streets and inside.

“For the first time young people in Bolton have got somewhere top quality to go,” he said.

Three years ago the Government launched a consultation with young people to investigate the building of new youth centres across the country.

Mr Glover said: “In the White Paper after that, Bolton Lads’ and Girls’ Club was quoted as a model they should look at.”

Carlisle is now bidding for £5million of Government cash to follow Bolton’s example with the proposed Youth Zone in the city.

Cumbria’s police and county council are both backing Mr Scowcroft’s idea.

Inspector Andy Shaddock, the police community safety manager for north Cumbria, said the prevention of anti-social behaviour in the first place was always better than the cure of police action.

“We welcome any initiative like this,” Insp Shaddock said.

“Antisocial behaviour is the key concern for local neighbourhoods in north Cumbria.

“We know that through the research we carry out.

“But what is vital is that there is an infrastructure of good facilities, so that the majority of young people have positive activities to pursue. A new youth centre could be part of that.”

A county council spokesman added: “Any initiative which helps young people to develop by engaging in out-of-school activities must be a good thing.

“The county council will be looking closely at how this suggested scheme could progress, and the implications for other parts of Cumbria.”

No-one can claim that teenagers are to blame for all the anti-social behaviour in society, and no-one believes that youth centres are the only answer to it.

But giving the young something constructive to do is part of the answer.

And if Bolton’s experience can be repeated here, it may well benefit not just our young people but all of us.