A NEW youth space is coming to Redditch’s Kingfisher Shopping Centre, opening later this year in a refurbished double unit.
The project – in the recently revamped covered market area has come about through an innovative approach to partnership funding and working and will host a variety of youth activities and workshops.
The centre will be refurbished by local young people working with mentors from community interest company (CIC) Volunteer It Yourself.
The CIC works with young people, enabling them to learn trades and employability skills through helping to fix local youth and community facilities and the main funder of this project is Toolstation which has a distribution centre in Redditch.
It means 17 young people from the borough, nominated by youth providers including schools, the YMCA, and the UP Foundation, will help renovate the centre and gain new skills and hands-on experience.
Inside the centre the young people will install a new kitchen, build a new storage cupboard, and redecorate. Outside, they will make benches, a planter, bee and bird boxes, and honeycomb trellis.
Youth support workers from Redditch Borough Council’s Community Safety team working with Young Solutions Worcestershire will manage the area, using funding secured from the Worcestershire Contain Outbreak Management Fund.
Redditch Borough Council’s portfolio holder for community services, Coun Nyear Nazir, said: “This is an example of how we can bring together partners with a range of skills and expertise and harness that to deliver projects for people in Redditch.
“Young people and the wider community get so many benefits from these kinds of services, where talent and skills can be nurtured, which is why creating this space has been one of our community safety priorities.
“I am excited for the opportunities this new facility will bring to young people in our town.”
Leader of the Council, Coun Matt Dormer, said: “It’s great to see innovative partnership working like this will yield another asset for the town centre.”
The space, set to be named later by the young people who use it, could be up and running as early as September.
