Swale youth club at risk of closure amid cuts to council funding

Kent County Council made the decision due to its own financial pressures, meaning it had to fix a shortfall of tens of millions of pounds.

Transcript

00:00 One decision, a massive impact. In a matter of days Kent County Council is

00:06 withdrawing funding for youth clubs across the county in attempts to balance

00:11 the books and now if these clubs want to stay open they'll have to find this

00:16 funding someplace else. Vibe is part of Swale Youth Consortium running nine

00:21 provisions across Swale. While the owners will try their hardest to keep this

00:26 afloat they say now they'll be short of a hundred thousand pounds.

00:32 I'll be so sad. The team was supportive. When you tell them something and you don't

00:40 want anyone to tell them they won't tell anyone. They'll shut down.

00:44 Because there's nothing really to do around here except for the clubs. There's nothing else to do

00:49 when I'm at home apart from be on the phone and it's not really that good being on the phone 24/7.

00:53 It was one of a number of tough decisions KCC made in order to

00:59 find tens of millions of pounds in savings for this year's budget.

01:04 It keeps him from running around the streets and getting in trouble. I suppose because there's

01:07 adults and things to guide them it gives them confidence to communicate with

01:11 other children so yeah it's quite important. I don't really want it to go.

01:16 My children love it and I like them coming here so I have to use public

01:19 transport and they are not reliable around here. They're like every hour and

01:23 even if they turn up they're not reliable whatsoever so if I was to say to

01:27 them right yeah we'll go to Sheerness, Seashells, Club Centre I could probably

01:31 never get them there because one minute the train would be on time next minute

01:35 it'd be cancelled or even the bus. The last bus here is at half past three so I

01:39 could never get them to Sheerness anyway. It means now it's adopting a

01:43 government-led scheme bringing essential services under one umbrella known as

01:48 family hubs. It's been devastating we fought for the last year to try and

01:52 stop that and overturn it because we can see it's going to have such an impact on

01:56 the young people. Young people need somewhere to go, they need somewhere safe,

01:59 they need somewhere fun, they need trusted people to go and talk to about

02:03 their their concerns and their issues and of course that's going to be gone.

02:07 When I started there was only around about eight young people here but over

02:11 the last nine months it's kind of grown now I get 30 to 40 per session. I also

02:14 run older sessions and cutting the funding for them also is going to

02:19 increase antisocial behaviour. I mean we do have contact with the police there's

02:23 only so much we can do as a team. A Kent County Council spokesperson said we know

02:28 residents of all ages value our services but we have to adapt to the hard

02:32 financial realities. They say in the face of these challenges moving to family

02:37 hubs will help them to better target services and they're also providing

02:41 support to these affected youth groups. While this youth club says they'll fight

02:45 to keep their doors open for others across Kent they're concerned they won't

02:49 be able to find the funds and even more concerned of where this would leave

02:54 thousands of children relying on these sessions in the county.

02:58 Sophia Akin for KMTV on the Isle of Sheppey.