Bognor Regis youth service cuts criticised

Mr Cosgrove said the council was ignoring the law with its current approach to providing facilities in the town.

He said the Education Act 1996 ruled youth centres should be available for every young person within their age group rather than the groups selected by the county youth service. “It doesn’t say they should be for some young people but for all young people,” he told a town council meeting last week.

“That does not seem to be happening. We have seen a wholesale retreat from the service provision the law says should be happening.

“The resources that have been removed from youth services in this area have been massively disproportionate. All this time, young people have lost out.”

He cited the closure of the Number 18 Project in Waterloo Square and the youth centres for North Bersted and Pagham and Rose Green in recent years.

Mr Cosgrove opened the Number 18 Project for a year in 2014 after the council’s withdrawal. He accused the county council of starting its Find It Out centre in Bognor to duplicate services provided by Number 18.

But Carl Burton, the council’s head of business improvement for children’s services, said: “We are complying with the Education Act pure and simple. Whether you agree or disagree with that is your opinion. We are complying by making provision across the county for young people under the duties as set out in statute.”

This could be in partnership as well as working directly, he said. Both the council’s centres, the Phoenix Centre at The Regis School campus and Find It Out off Church Path, were fully accessible unlike the three floor Number 18 building, he stated.

Karon Chamberlain, the county council’s service manager for young people’s services, said the policy was to provide activities for specific groups of young people.

They included those outside education, training or employment, carers and offenders. Courses focused on building resilience and helping to overcome self harming or bullying.

Find It Out was attended by 216 young people in the past three months and some 400 a week went to the Phoenix Centre, she said later.

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