Cash pooled to create new youth centre for Wivenhoe

The original Wivenhoe Youth Club ran from the building where the doctors' surgery is now.

When the building was sold in 2016, the Wivenhoe Youth Hub folded.

Since then, the town council has been looking to create something for young people.

After securing a wealth of funding, preparations were able to begin.

Wivenhoe Town Council has contributed £3,000 to the costs while councillor Andrea Luxford Vaughan has donated £2,000 from her Colchester Council locality fund and councillor Mark Cory has contributed £5,000 from his Essex County Council locality fund.

Mark Cory also went through an application process, in which he secured £10,000, from the Essex Youth Fund, which was passed on to the town council.

The container, that will eventually become the youth hub, was traded from a school in Greenstead

Mr Cory had been working with a Greenstead school, engaging in green growing activities.

The school wished to get rid of an old shipping container that had been on the premises.

Mr Cory offered to swap the old shipping container for a new, specialised shed for growing, seeing the opportunity to use the shipping container as a new venue.

After being supported for low cost by a logistics company, the container was moved behind Wivenhoe Town Council building, backing on to King George V playing field.

Supported by the Essex Youth Service, 146 school children have been asked what they want to have in the youth hub.

The new facility will have small café facilities, TVs, music and games facilities, providing a place for young people to gather.

With the support of youth service and volunteers, Wivenhoe Town Council hopes activities will be run out of the hub by the end of summer.

The shipping container being set down behind the Wivenhoe Town Council building

Mr Cory, who is a town, borough and county councillor for Wivenhoe, said: “I am pleased to have got support and financial aid from Essex to make this a reality. I want to champion the young people in Wivenhoe as we did before.

 “We are happy to provide young people a safe and accessible place to meet.”

Anne Lucking, lead volunteer on the project, said: “It’s so exciting to finally provide the teenagers of Wivenhoe their own space.

“The reason I stood up to get involved is because I feel the teenagers get a bad press in Wivenhoe. I felt it was extremely important to give them a place that was theirs.”