ORGANISERS hope that a new base can be found for a York youth club after it was cancelled at a community centre.

Tang Hall Community Centre said its Wednesday evening youth club would no longer be running from the centre, after anti-social misbehaviour resulted in false callouts to the fire service and damage to the centre’s play equipment.

It posted on its Facebook page that it had been working with North Yorkshire Youth (NYY), which commissioned the club, to address such issues but a decision had been taken by NYY to cancel the club from the centre.

“We fully support the need for a youth club in the area and wish it well for the future,”it said.

“As a centre we tend not to talk about the more negative aspects on social media but given how important a youth club is needed in the area, we wanted to be open with what had happened.

“We work hard to make the centre a welcoming and safe place for our community and we are proud of where we live.”

It added that when things went wrong at the centre it was usually due to a small percentage of people and it was put into perspective by the goodwill, friendship, volunteering, smiles and love experienced every day.

David Sharp, chief executive of North Yorkshire Youth, said that while the youth club would no longer operate from the community centre, he hoped it would be able to resume shortly at alternative premises in the area.

He said negotiations were ongoing for the club to make such a move, but in the meantime, qualified workers from the club were carrying out ‘detached youth work’ with young people in the area.

For example, they were going out in pairs and playing games with youngsters in local parks.

He said he understood the anti-social behaviour had consisted mainly of some older children sitting on a slide in the play area and causing damage to it.

He said such damage wasn’t fair on younger children who wanted to use the equipment and so NYY had decided it was best to find a suitable alternative location where such temptations did not exist.