Campaigners from Southall gathered outside Ealing Town Hall last night (26 July 2022) to protest about Ealing Council’s closure of Southall Youth Centre and to express their concern over the general lack of youth provision facilities for young people living in Southall.
The current youth centre, also knows as the Young Adult Centre in Park View Road has been closed and is set to be redeveloped into flats.
The protest outside the town hall, took place before and during the last full council meeting before summer recess and saw campaigners raising their concerns with councillors including cabinet member for good growth, councillor Shital Manro from the ruling Labour party. Campaigners also raised their concern with the official opposition, LibDems and the Conservatives.
“We are here because the voice of Southall is not heard or listened to and the future of our youth and community is at stake. The council have shut the youth centre and provided nothing for our youth.” one campaigner told EALING.NEWS. “They claim they will replace the existing one with another but to date they haven’t specified fully when or where it will be and while the existing centre is closed, what are young people supposed to do? All they seem to be doing is downgrading what little there was already and have shown nothing to Southall youth about what the future is.”
A website giving some details of the redevelopment by the council is located at this council website, but when visitors click on the link for more information, a page not found is shown with no information on the youth plan which has also raised concern by campaigners.
Ealing Council were contacted by EALING.NEWS for comment.