Can’t Run On Empty
Youth Commons Pleads for More Revenue Funding
to Avoid Closure
HUGH SULLIVAN
In January 2023 Hastings Commons was awarded £8.7 million of public and charitable funds for investment in youth infrastructure and facilities at Eagle House and the Observer Building in Cambridge Road. Over 100 children and teenagers per week between the ages of 11 and 18 – from across the borough and beyond, many from socially deprived backgrounds and with complex needs – are being offered life-changing experiences and opportunities.
But its trustees warned last week that unless the core costs of the enterprise, including wages of youth workers, rent and food, are covered, or at least supplemented, by further government funding, it may be forced to shut its doors.
“We welcome the government’s recognition that young people need stability and continuity while we wait for the new National Youth Strategy,” said Jess Steele, CEO of Hastings Commons. “We’ve had a great injection of capital to create wonderful facilities. Now we need revenue funding to continue to pay staff and keep these vital youth spaces open. You can’t just build youth centres and leave them empty.”
The original funding came from a Youth Investment Fund (YIF) grant financed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport during Rishi Sunak’s premiership and delivered by a charitable foundation, Social Investment Business. It was part of a programme intended to “transform and level up opportunities for young people” – one of 46 such projects across England costing a total of over £300m. The Fund was backed by what the Government called its “National Youth Guarantee” ensuring that every young person in the country “will have access to regular out-of-school activities, adventures away from home and opportunities to volunteer”.
At the time Hastings Commons described the funding as “enabl[ing] youth work and facilities that can transform health, wellbeing, skills and opportunities for young people. It is a ground-breaking opportunity to prioritise the needs of young people, to develop the life-changing environments they need and to create a more equal society for future generations.”
YOUTH PROGRAMME
Two years on, youth programme manager Sidney Ewing is keen to endorse the benefits which the Commons has been bringing. Sessions are run from 4pm to 7pm – different age groups on separate evenings. Young people can make their way to the venue directly after school and then travel back home at a reasonable hour by bus, though many of them (she says) are not enrolled in formal education, being either home-schooled or subject to exclusion. The Youth Commons works closely with Xtrax, a support agency for marginalised young people up to the age of 25, in giving assistance and advice to deal with crisis issues.
At the Commons, activities are guided and led by the young people. There’s always hot food, table-top games, and arts and crafts, as well as organised trips, such as crazy golf or bowling, which are not charged for. Last summer, a day out in London gave many young people a chance to visit a city that they’d never set foot in before. During the Eagle House renovations, the youth club has been co-located with OBX, the creative technology hub of the Observer Building, leading to opportunities, including work experience and training courses, with emergent tech.
Besides Ms Ewing there are three full-time youth workers and a bevy of volunteers, including some young members of the group being trained up as youth leaders.
REVENUE FUNDING
The vast majority of the YIF grant was awarded specifically for renovation and development of the buildings into usable space for young people. A much smaller proportion (less than £900,000) was earmarked for revenue funding. Jess Steele says they used this to develop and deliver the youth club and OBX while the building works were under way.
The long term aim has always been, and still is, that profits from events and a permanent bar planned for the rooftop of the Observer Building will generate cash that would be ring-fenced to support youth activities. In the event, the scaffolding has only just come down from the roof works, and there is no bar yet nor any other profitable activities up and running.
“Delays in completing the building works haven’t helped”, Steele admitted, “but it was always going to take time to build an income stream that can contribute significantly to youth work…. We’ve always known we would have to adapt and change over time, and we’re doing that. But we–and youth clubs everywhere – need some base funding so we know we can keep opening the doors.”
In her Spending Review last month, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves claimed to be providing “record investment for training and upskilling our young”. She pledged £1.2bn a year by the end of the period “to support over a million young people into training and apprenticeships”, £555m of “transformation funding” for children’s social care and £130m in “funding facilities for our young people”. The managers of Hastings Youth Commons are waiting to hear whether any of this largesse is coming their way. If not, what was the purpose of all that capital outlay?
We hope you have enjoyed reading this article. The future of our volunteer led, non-profit publication would be far more secure with the aid of a small donation. You can also support local journalism by becoming a friend of HIP. It only takes a minute and we would be very grateful.
Leave a Reply