Grant Enables City Council To Provide New Hi-Tec Buses For The Young

By Warren

Stoke-on-Trent city council's youth services took  delivery of five brand new mobile youth vehicles on Monday.

The Uth HOPPA - decked out in the council's logo - will be used to take youth workers to areas where there are little or no facilities for young people.

The hi-tech vehicles will all have computers with internet access and flat screen TV's. Three youth workers will travel with each bus and be on hand to talk about issues which are particularly relevant to young people, such as employment, volunteering opportunities and local activities the youngsters might like to get involved with.

Pat Shelley, Youth and Play Services manager for Children and Young People's Services, said: "The HOPPAs will give us the chance to reach young people in communities where we haven't been able to get to before. It'll be a real chance to help the young people with all sorts of information and give them the opportunity to ask us questions about anything they've got on their minds. It's also a way of introducing them to activities they might not have considered before - like voluntary work."

[caption id="attachment_2498" align="alignleft" width="90" caption="Mohammed Pervez"][/caption]

Deputy Elected Mayor and political spokesperson for Children and Young People's Services, Cllr.Mohammed Pervez, (pictured) said: " This is the first of a range of new facilities we are going to be able to provide for our young people in the city. Being able to offer young people a safe place to meet and socialise is vitally important to any community and these Uth HOPPAs will offer just that opportunity."

Funding for the new buses has come from the Government's Youth Capital Plus Fund which supplied a grant of £230,000. Stoke-on-Trent is one of 50 local authorities to benefit from the fund, which brings young people and communities together to design and develop new facilities for young people.

What a good idea, this may prove to young people that they do matter and others do care, and a chance to air there views in a relaxed way, what do you think?