Cat Smith Working for Lancaster and Fleetwood
Like many of you, I have been disheartened to hear about plans to close five Girlguiding national training centres. I’m an ambassador for Girlguiding and have always championed the fantastic opportunities that Guiding in Lancashire offers to young women.
As a former Rainbow, Brownie, Guide and Ranger myself, I have extremely fond memories of Waddow Hall in particular as my local centre, and I absolutely share the concerns of young people, parents and group leaders who are saddened by the prospect of children losing out on transformative opportunities to build friendships, gain their confidence, learn valuable life skills and make a positive difference to their lives and communities.
Last year, the Government assured me that £15m was being put towards these groups and other non-military-uniformed youth services. I am aware though, that this sadly was on a backdrop of cuts of £400m to youth services announced by Rishi Sunak in 2021, and real-terms youth service funding cuts of two-thirds since 2010, which I fought against in my role as Shadow Minister for Youth Affairs.
Youth Services provide so much hope to young people in the face of an extremely challenging financial landscape, and so I have written to the Chief Executive for Girlguiding for any information on these decisions and to ask how we can save these fantastic training centres.
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