Deal secures long term future of Blackpool youth centre

Blackpool Council has agreed to lease the Horsebridge Road Community Centre to the Boathouse Youth Project for 25 years, and will also plough £50,000 into the scheme.

The new lease will replace an existing five year lease on the building, which Boathouse Youth has been using since 2020.

Planning permission was granted in 2021 to add a new break-out hall, reception area, a one to one mentoring room and adjacent storage facility to the existing building.

Due to the success of the project, Boathouse Youth has committed £239,667 capital funding to expand and develop its provision as well as attracting additional funding for staff.

A council report says: “The Boathouse have been providing youth activities on the Grange Park estate since 2019, initially borrowing space at Boundary primary school on the other side of the estate.

“This wasn’t ideal and didn’t allow the development of permanent highquality youth work.

“Moving to a permanent home at Horsebridge Road Community Centre in January 2020, initially on a five year lease, has enabled the Boathouse to planmore activities, and helped address the current lack of activities for young people in that part of the estate.”

Since then the report says the service has grown considerably with both the police and the council’s anti-social behaviour service reporting a drop in youth nuisance.

It adds: “Boathouse Youth has expanded to provide a new provision for more vulnerable children and young people requiring more intensive support, alongside their core activity.

“The organisation’s focus is to support young people to become positive contributors to the community expanding their horizons and thinking about employment.”

Boathouse Youth was founded in 2009 and operates in the Grange Park and Bloomfield areas, where some of Blackpool’s most vulnerable children live.

There is also more family housing in the area due to new homes being built and flats being converted to family homes, meaning more youngsters live locally and can access the youth provision.

Before the project took over the Horsebridge Road Community Centre, the building had become a magnet for vandalism with windows repeatedly broken and doors damaged.