Doors open at Rhyl's New Youth Centre

The centre is an invaluable resource that will enable the council to engage with and support our young people in an area with a high level of social deprivation and exclusion.

Work started on the project in June 2022 and the centre is now open to serve and support the area’s 11-25 year olds. This £217,000 project has been enabled by funding through an application for Stage 1 funding from the UK’s Shared Prosperity Fund for the building capital fund, and a further investment through Youth Service core funding to pay for internal fitting costs and resources.

The Youth Centre is located at the town’s former East Parade Café, a building which had been vacant since 2015 prior to redevelopment. The new premises will deliver a fit-for-purpose, modern building for Rhyl and North Denbighshire, enabling the Council to increase access to youth work activity, special youth work interventions, advice, guidance and information, and access to partner agencies.

Another positive for the project is that some of the area’s young people have already been involved by sharing their ideas for the centre even before the doors opened.

Rhyl Youth Centre will allow for increased opportunities through partnership arrangements for young people to try new skills and potentially increase the amount of positive activities young people can engage in. These partnerships will lead to better outcomes for young people and a chance to promote young people’s achievements.

Opportunities at the centre will include open access youth service sessions including Welsh language provision led by Urdd Gobaith Cymru, targeted intervention youth work and a young parents’ group, delivering sessions and services designed to cater for the needs of the area’s young people, from one to one provision to sessions and activities for larger groups. The centre will also support other departments and partners including Education and Social Services to engage young people in an environment they are comfortable in.

There are so many aspects which influence and have an effect on young people’s lives today and help and support available to guide them through matters which cause them concern, but assigning the help available to the individual who needs it can still be problematic. This centre will enable the Youth Service to meet its statutory requirements as well as being able to deliver youth work to meet the Youth Work Strategy for Wales in providing a safe space for young people to voluntary access and is highly visible to both young people and families to know where to access support.

The new Rhyl Youth Centre was officially opened by Councillor Arwel Roberts, Chair of Denbighshire County Council.