Did you go to a youth club when you were a kid? I didn’t, I was too much of a nerd. It was all brownies, after-school swimming training or sea scouts, for me – plus the 179 bus to Ilford Exchange shopping centre with my friend Roz to hang out over the railings and stare at boys.
Youth clubs, going solely by what I’d seen on the telly in the 1990s, were cool, edgy places where people played table-tennis, started pirate radio stations and sometimes got pregnant (that’s what happened to Leanne in Byker Grove, anyway).
The thing is, I never got the chance to try my hand at going to a local youth club or community centre (or, some would argue, at being cool) because they all promptly disappeared. Thanks to the cuts to local authority funding made by the Tory government between 2010 and 2019, scores of youth clubs were closed. In London, where I grew up, as many as 30 per cent were shut down.
And it didn’t do us kids any good – in fact, a damning study that looked at the effects of the closures revealed that teenagers whose nearest youth club shut its doors actually went on to do worse in school. The decision to take away such a valuable resource – particularly in deprived areas – had a major part to play in increased rates of offending and worse GCSE results, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said at the time.
And the kids that suffered the most from the Conservative government’s decision to shut them all down (surprise, surprise) were those entitled to free school meals.
Yet fast forward 15 or so years and a change of government and the topic of youth clubs is, once again, on the menu: but this time it (shhh, don’t jinx it) actually might be positive.
That’s because the prime minister, flanked by the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, has unveiled a raft of new plans – and, crucially, money – designed to help kids “reconnect with their communities” and get them offline.
Labour says the £88 million package – £30.5m of which will be channelled into the “Better Youth Spaces programme”, serving organisations in the most deprived areas – will support youth clubs and schools to offer more after-school activities (such as sport, art and music, outdoor activities, debating or volunteering). It will also enable organisations like the Scouts and Guides to deliver more in local communities.
And even better is the fact that Keir Starmer and Nandy seem to have already seen off the inevitable snag of how to get teenagers into youth clubs in the first place.
Because rather than ploughing the money into “traditional” community halls – the type with drab posters warning about the dangers of drugs, a sad packet of digestives and a broken basketball hoop – the plans appear to include investment into an area in whichever way the area actually needs it.
That means: climbing walls, outdoor sports and music lessons; perhaps even a funded minibus to transport kids from one area to another with more amenities.
Labour have clearly got those 16-year-old voters in their sights… and good for them. The plans, which were revealed this week, actually seem to show some real-world understanding of the kind of dilemmas facing teenagers in 2025 (not least: social isolation).
We already know that a plethora of young people are suffering from internet addiction and are at risk from malevolent influences like the manosphere and Andrew Tate; we’ve seen the widespread support – and grief – after the airing of
So, when Labour say as part of their proposals that: “Far from the default being outdoor activities, young people today are spending more and more of their time detached from the real world, either stuck in their bedrooms or behind a screen, throwing up huge challenges for them and their loved ones to overcome” – and pledge as a government to “take bold action to give young people a better alternative, so they are supported rather than left behind” – as a parent who worries about this kind of stuff constantly, it’s really quite refreshing.
I would absolutely love my kids to get off screens and go outside to knock a ball around. I would relish them traipsing to a community centre nearby, where I’d know exactly where they were (even if not exactly what they were doing).
I want them to have a risk-free space to “vibe” in or to do whatever they call it in Gen Alpha. And I’d much, much rather that be in a dingy hall run by a youth leader or Akela, rather than the park or shopping centre or at the bottom of a field because someone stupid suggested we go “cow-tipping”, like I did.
And crucially, I believe, so would they.
There’s pretty much nothing online that my children (aged nine and 13) wouldn’t drop in a heartbeat if I told them one of their friends was coming round to play IRL, or suggested a day trip to town with someone they liked.
Our neighbourhood in London is built on Quaker land, so there is no local shop, no pub, no off-licence within easy walking distance. If there was actually something to do, I doubt I’d ever see them again. But at least I’d know they were safe.
I’ve had a small taste of what these kinds of community resources for kids could look like – my 13-year-old daughter has been taking herself off to a local sports club every Friday night, simply to “hang out” on the grass enclosure inside the gates with her friends.
Not only does she get to walk herself there and home (big tick for teenage independence), but while there, screens are – truly – forgotten. The last time she went and I asked her what she got up to, she said “we played tag and then chased each other across the grass holding each other’s legs, like wheelbarrows”. She also gets to stare at boys, just like I did. Plus ça change, I suppose.
The big difference is that if these plans come to fruition, she’ll have somewhere to do it, out of harm’s way.
