The County Council’s Youth Centres have a vital role to play in providing positive activities and support for young people. They also provide a safe space for our youngsters to meet and socialise.

To play this vital role, the cuts in Youth Centre opening hours, which have been implemented in recent years and which have left some of the Youth Centres in Surrey open for only a very few hours each week, need to be reversed.

At the same time, a significant increase in the opening hours needs to be implemented so that young people in our communities are not left on the streets with nothing to do whilst County Council owned Youth Centres are locked up.

In addition, the running of the youth service needs urgent improvement so that funding allocated to providing the youth service is actually spent on providing services and resources are not wasted through underuse.

Liberal Democrats in Surrey are clear: we need to invest in our youth services so that our young people get the best start in life. We need Youth Centres with sufficient youth workers to provide a proper service, and Youth Centres that are open for enough hours a week to meet the demands of our young people.