About The Brizen Young People's Centre
In September 2009, a new purpose-built Youth Centre was built on the Brizen Recreation Field, after running a Youth project from a hired pod for 10 years. The POD only enabled about 12 young people access due to its size, but it was very popular and well used.
To enable a new build, the local authorities, with support from the police and a general management committee, worked for over a year to finance this project. With funding from The Severn Trent Community Flooding Fund and The Cory Environmental Trust, we raised the 100k needed and the centre was officially opened in 2009.
With support from the Parish Council of Leckhampton and Warden Hill, the centre is well used by hirers for public and entertainment purposes, along with a daily pre-school group.
The Youth Work sessions on a Monday and Friday are well attended and help young people to meet, socialise and open useful pathways for their future.
We function with a small board of Trustees who are enthusiastic and very dedicated to the wellbeing and the future of our young people in the Warden Hill and Hatherley/Leckhampton Area.
The Trustees maintain the hall, manage hall hire and fundraise in order to continue to provide youth work in the area.
Our History
1990s
In 1994, there was general acknowledgement amongst the community in Cheltenham that social facilities for teenagers in the town, and particularly in the suburbs, were sadly lacking and that increasing numbers of young people were on the streets in the evening hours with nothing to do.
Following a small grant of just £600 from the local authorities, Gloucestershire County Council’s Youth Community Office in Cheltenham (helped and supported by Cheltenham Borough Council, local Parish Councils, Safeways, and the Gloucestershire Crime Reduction Unit), obtained an old double decker bus and fitted it out with some basic equipment including a hi-fi system, a computer (an Amiga!), games, a refreshments kitchen, together with an information service by youth workers concerning various things such as jobs, drugs, sex, health, activities etc
