Teenagers join protest against youth service cuts (From Herald Series)

Teenagers join protest against youth service cuts

6:53pm Monday 21st December 2009

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)

YOUNG homeless people joined protesters at County Hall today to demonstrate against Oxfordshire County Council moves to slash spending on youth services.

Placards denounced the council’s plan to cut youth support by more than half – from £3.7m to £1.4m by 2013.

Daniel Fraser, 17, who is living in temporary accommodation in Rivermead Road, Rose Hill, Oxford, urged the council to maintain spending on youth services – particularly Oxford’s Detached Youth Work Project, which receives £80,822 a year.

He said: “I use the detached youth centre in Oxford all the time and it's a genuine life-saver.

“Without the help of their youth workers I’d be in a sleeping bag out on the street now.

“Youth workers are some of the few people we can trust. We need more people like them, not to be cutting them.

“It would be tragic for a lot of young people if the service is cut. More people could end up sleeping rough.”

The authority wants to make cuts which would affect every youth centre in the county as it attempts to save £31m over the next five years.

Krissy Gray, a 17-year-old in foster care in Wheatley, said: “This is an absolutely stupid and ridiculous plan. If the council wants to make Oxfordshire a better place they should give more money to the youth service, not cut it.”

Graham North, 54, works as a volunteer at the Oxfordshire Youth Mentoring Service in Abingdon, which currently benefits from £179,465 of council funding.

He said: “I’m afraid if these cuts go ahead the mentoring service could disappear altogether.

“With youth unemployment running so high they need to look at putting more money in to help these kids.”

Protest organiser Christopher Quinton said: “We want to make the county council aware that in terms of their overall budget the amount they save will be small but its impact on our young people will be huge.”

Mr Quinton said he hoped to start an online petition so people could show their opposition to the cuts.

Council spokesman Owen Morton said: “The council has made no decision on budget proposals for 2010-15.

“Councils up and down the country are having to examine every area of their budgets because the Government is more than £800bn in debt – and will seek to make savings that will have a severe impact on local government, which gets two thirds of its funding from Whitehall.”

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)