Meeting called to help decide future of youth centre facing closure

The management committee of Peterlee Youth in Hailsham Close in the town centre is planning to hold a dissolution meeting next month after just four volunteer were left to handle the responsibilities.

With the eldest at 86 and youngest just 18, the team hope others will come forward to offer support.

If there is no answer to their call, they say the building, which has served the town for 51 years, could close.

It hosts a job club as an out-reach on behalf of East Durham Coast and youth sessions run by Durham County Council.

A spokesman said: “After slowly plodding on after so many years its management committee has decided in the face of great hardship the only the possibility would be the closure of the centre with so few members who could give the time to run the centre and make plans for its future.”

The meeting will be held at the centre on Wednesday, September 14, at 3.15pm.

Earlier this year, as it prepared for its annual meeting, the team said it had been its hardest 12 months in its history, but was striving to ensure it continued to offr young people in the area somewhere safe to spend their spare time.

The council’s head of children’s services, Carole Payne, said: “We have been given notice by the management committee of Peterlee Youth Club that they wish to bring their sub-leasing of the building to an end at the end of 2016.

“Discussions will now take place, in conjunction with the landlords, over future plans for the youth centre.”