Skeleton Summer Programme Lets Down Young People in St Albans District

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Sat 28th Jul 2007

Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate Sandy Walkington has accused Hertfordshire County Council Youth Service of only providing a skeleton summer holiday programme for local young people.

"On the county council youth website, where most parents would look under "Stuff to do", seven out of ten districts have no activities listed at all for the summer," he said. "St Albans offers a handful of activities, but not nearly sufficient for the 18,500 people aged 5-15 years old in the district.

"Yet only this week new Government figures have shown that the prescription by doctors of anti-depressants and other mind-altering drugs among schoolchildren has more than quadrupled in the past decade, and the number of children aged 15 and under being admitted to A&E departments with alcohol-related problems has also risen massively.

"If we are serious about supporting our young people and their families the County Council needs to provide a youth service which reaches out for more than just a few hours a week to a handful of young people," Sandy said.

County Cllr Allan Witherick who represents the area which includes the Pioneer Youth Club and St Albans Judo Club added "Young people don't want to cause problems, but unless there's something for them to do a handful will give the rest a bad name.

"We are lucky that the voluntary sector in St Albans is strong and provides many facilities and groups from both Judo and the skate park through to uniformed groups like Scouts and Guides, but they can only do so much," Allan said. "With the Pioneer and Judo club premises under threat I would encourage parents and young people to show their support for these groups while we still have them."

"It's yet another reason why the Liberal Democrats are pushing the Tory County Council to give us both extra services at Westminster Lodge and keep the Pioneer and the Judo club."

ENDS

For more information, please call Sandy Walkington on 07802 177317 or Cllr Allan Witherick on 07957 464569

The web link for the St Albans summer programme is http://www.hertsdirect.org/infobase/docs/pdfstore/stalbanssummer07.pdf