Dear Minister and Chief Executive
The Palmerston Residents Association has been in contact with you and your department for some months we have been asking for answers to questions that I feel are very important. We require answers to why Asbestos was used in the Building of the Youth Centre on the Palmerston Road Sydenham Belfast.
We also requested copies of the minutes of meetings that had taken place over a two year period with other groups to enable us to have a grasp of the feelings of the participants involved in the meeting at that time.We have also stated from our first contact with the board that a proper audit be carried out in the whole area of Sydenham and Ashmount area, to involve every household to enable the Education Board to gauge what Youth provision was needed in the area and what type of youth provision was required.
The Education board has continually said they felt there was no need for an audit in the area I as chairman of the residents association totally disagree with the Board. I feel that as the Board held talks for two years on a major issue as moving or shutting down a facility such as the Youth Hall the first thing that should have taken place was to ask the community and seek a wide range of expression in the area.
We have said from our first contact that the need for an audit was vital purely because the facility is the only neutral building in the area apart from Inverary Community Centre that is booked out most time, the need for the Youth Club In the area is vital for the younger generation of all communities in the area and is vital to the growth of the Sydenham and the Ashmount areas, the board in its attitude to the audit is totally flawed as it seems to feel it has no need to find out what people who live in the area want. The board fails to recognise the changing population in Northern Ireland and the need to be fully inclusive of all communities and the needs of the disabled communities in the area.
I as chairman ask the Education Board to think again on this Youth Hall the need for it in our area is vital to enable the community youth have a place they can go to and claim as their own. The need for youth workers in the area is also vital to help our young community deal with the pressures it is under in our way of life today,never has young people in Northern Ireland needed such a facility as now. We see other parts of the UK spending millions of pounds on it youth through Play England and Play London the government has recognised the need for our young people to have places for play and recreation. If we want to tackle the problems that our younger generation have to face today.
I look at other parts of the UK that I have lived in and how the youth is provided for and it makes me feel disgusted
In other parts of the UK young people attend rock concerts, make records, skate board centres and adventure playgrounds. In other parts of the UK they have not had to tackle thirty six years of violence yet our young people are at the end of the line when it comes to youth provision, we see our young people committing suicide because of the baggage they carry around with them, reports show East Belfast is becoming one of the highest places for suicide. The DSD has deemed it an area at risk.
I also know our mental health services are stretched to bursting as it has been under funded for years, I have seen our younger community trying to deal with mental health problems like never before, they have so many problems to deal with yet they are the ones that are forgotten in Northern Ireland. We spend millions on public enquiries, but find it hard to fund mental health for our youth.
I ask you the Minister of Education and The Chief Executive to rethink your plans on the Sydenham Youth Club and give it back to the young people of the area, if the Board has sold it buy it back then hold an audit in the area and find out what the young people in the area really want, show us that the Education Board has vision and they are looking to the future and not having tunnel vision in the needs of our young community.
The Sydenham Youth Club has not been in use for over two years it is falling into disrepair, the Board say it is because the building has asbestos in it, then take your opportunity to answer our letter to you and clear up the points we have raised, all we ask from you are answers as to why our young peoples Youth Club lies closed, when other parts of the UK are spending millions for youth provision yet the Board decides that it would cost too much to refurbish it and bring it to a standard where disabled people could also use it. I feel this is a nonsense as the building is approximately twenty years old. How could this be right how can you put a price on the future of the youth in the area?
Terry Hoey
Chairman Palmerston Residents Association
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