Wildmill Youthworks

Picture features Youth Works Project Co-ordinator Tyrone Hughes (back left) and myself with local youngsters displaying one of the proposed signs they have designed to reduce speeding in Wildmill.

Last night I visited a pioneering project to rejuvenate a community of Bridgend and provide young people with the chance to develop personal skills to help them obtain employment or enter further education

It is run as a partnership between the local authority, the Groundwork Trust and Youthworks, and I went along to see at first hand the work being done there.

The Wildmill Estate has had some of the highest levels of drug-related and other crime in the Bridgend area. As well as dealing with the problems that local people suffer there via the criminal justice system, it is equally important to tackle the long term causes of crime by working with the residents and young people living there.”

By offering diversionary activities and helping to show the youngsters what they can achieve if they put their minds to it, the Youthworks project is having a dramatic effect in transforming the levels of crime and offending in Wildmill.

As well as providing outdoor and sporting activities for the teenagers there, they have also introduced them to other schemes that could benefit them such as the Princes Trust and the Positive Futures programme run by the Youth Service and the Youth programme.

The hard work being put in by the staff, volunteers and young people at the centre is particularly inspiring. It shows that the sense of community spirit in Wildmill is still very much alive and well. I fully support the efforts of everyone involved in the project.