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Frank Dobson, youth project manager Frances Shank and Nicky Gavron with Ed Balls and £4.5 million |
Youth club cash cuts ‘wrong way to show respect’, warns minister
Exclusive: Ed Balls hails centre hit by grants blow as ‘a great place with brilliant staff ’
EDUCATION secretary Ed Balls told the New Journal yesterday (Wednesday) that he was disgusted by plans to cut grants to Camden’s youth centres.
In an interview, he warned that the Town Hall had mixed up its priorities and risked fuelling youth crime this summer by forcing teenagers in deprived wards onto the streets.
Mr Balls was in angry mood as he visited Castlehaven Community Centre in Camden Town, which has had its annual council grant slashed.
Youth workers say they will lose staff but have been told by the council there is no point appealing against the decision.
“It is absolutely the wrong way to tackle the issue of youth crime in London,” Mr Balls said. “It is exactly the wrong way to show respect for young people.”
The Fresh Juice Bar in Highgate and the Queen’s Crescent Community Centre are also due to get less cash this year, with Liberal Democrat council chiefs insisting that money should be directed elsewhere.
Mr Balls’s intervention came just weeks after youth workers said they were dreading potential disorder over the summer due to activities being cut back – warnings that coincided with the leak of a police report revealing that teenagers are victims in a third of all street robberies in Camden.
The minister insisted that muggings were not a regular problem for Camden’s youth – a view unlikely to be shared by many teenagers who have recently talked openly about how common it is to be “jacked”.
But Mr Balls said: “When I talk to people in Camden, whether they are 14 or 44, or 64, the first thing they will always say is that ‘we want to be safe’, ‘we want to have more police on the
streets’, ‘we want more lights on the streets’.
“Young people care about safety as much as adults. Nobody wants to get mugged. While those things are not common occurrences, they make a difference to young people.”
He added: “We say there have to be more places for young people to go. If we are going to deliver safe streets but also respect young people, we are going to have to respect their communities. We have to meet that demand and provide the facilities to do sport, art or music.”
Liberal Democrat children’s service chief Councillor John Bryant ramped up the tension surrounding the grant cuts with the incendiary comment last week that council cash had traditionally gone to “Labour’s favoured friends”.
He indicated that now his party is in power, he felt it was time to look at spending money in other areas, including a new youth club in Lythos Road, West Hampstead. Opponents said that in the past money had simply gone to less privileged areas where services were needed most.
Mr Balls said: “If the council is saying this facility is not doing a good job, if they are saying it’s a bad place, it’s not value for money – then that’s its choice. But what could be more value for money than to have a great place with brilliant staff doing such good work?
“The people working here are making sure young people have somewhere to go after school and at weekends with trusted adults, giving them the chance to learn, keeping young people on the right tracks.”
He spent more than an hour in Camden Town meeting managers at Castlehaven Community Centre and was shown around a radio suite, football pitches and social room. At one point he joked that the wall outside should have a sign outside reading “Ball Games Allowed”.
Later, sitting on a couch normally used by 14-year-olds, he said: “It’s obviously a decision for the local council but in my experience all across the country there are communities that are desperate for places like this, where young people can come and feel safe and have a great time in the evening.
“Most parents and most pupils would want these kinds of places to be expanded and to get more money. So it will be really disappointing to find out that there are cuts planned for this service and that it will be open for young people fewer nights a week.”
Mr Balls’s intervention bore similarities to ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair’s decision to descend on Camden in the run-up to the 2006 local elections, in which Labour’s support capsized and the party was voted out.
But, unlike Mr Blair’s visit, when local Labour Party members privately wished he had stayed away, colleagues were happy to meet the up-and-coming cabinet figure.
Holborn and St Pancras MP Frank Dobson and ward councillor Pat Callaghan were there to shake hands and offer support to youth workers. Nicky Gavron, Labour’s candidate for the London Assembly in Camden, also toured the centre.
Inevitably, Mr Balls gave a ringing endorsement to Ken Livingstone’s attempt to win a third term as London mayor, posing with a giant cheque representing a pledge to spend more on youth services. |
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