'It's about the kids': Eye resident calls on council to keep community centre open in emotional plea

“It doesn’t matter about the politics in this room, it matters about the kids,” a Peterborough resident told councillors in an emotional plea to keep his local youth centre and library open.

Dale McKean presented a petition to Peterborough City Council (PCC) in the Town Hall this week, asking them – alongside more than 1,500 other signatories – to keep Eye Youth Centre and Library open.

The building on Crowland Road is one of those named in the council’s list of assets it’s considering selling or repurposing.

Made public for the first time this week, the list says that services at the centre could be relocated to Manor Farm Community Centre, also in Eye, but that feasibility studies are ongoing and a final proposal is yet to be made.

Mr McKean, who set up the petition, said that the centre is used by the Junior Youth Club, with 60-70 members, as well as the Rainbows, Brownies and Girl Guides, with a further 80 members.

Manor Farm currently only has one free evening, he added, as well as no secure storage or outdoor play area, so would not be able to fully accommodate them.

Council leader Cllr Mohammed Farooq (Peterborough First, Hargate and Hampstead) said that the petition should be considered by the council’s decision-making cabinet next month when the assets list is due to be discussed again, which was accepted by the rest of the council.

Mr McKean said that he “can’t see cabinet making a decision” on the centre then, however, as a recommendation for its future has not yet been made.

He added in his address that engagement from the council has been “very good” since he launched the petition in some ways, but that its responses to his suggestions that it apply for government grant money to keep the centre open have been “negligible”.

“They’ve missed loads of opportunities and there are more still,” he said, adding that he’s sent links to the council to various national initiatives.

Mr McKean attended the meeting with Peterborough’s Conservative MP, Paul Bristow, and other local residents.

Councillors blame each other for assets review

While councillors across the chamber agreed to Cllr Farooq’s suggestion that the petition be referred on to the next cabinet meeting, they also took the opportunity to blame each other for the community centre being put under review.

Cllr Marco Cereste (Conservatives, Hampton Vale) said he thinks it’s “absolutely diabolical that we’re even considering closing down the community centre and the library” in Eye, and that the new Peterborough First administration – which took over from the Conservatives in November – was “hiding everything behind the word ‘review’”.

“Believe me, when people are reviewing stuff, it means they want to do stuff,” he said.

PCC has repeatedly stressed that no decisions about any assets on the list have yet been made and that closure is only one of several possible options for each building, and that some will be retained or repurposed.

Cllr Gavin Elsey (Peterborough First, Wittering), meanwhile, said that the “terrible situation” with Eye Youth Centre and Library "isn’t one of our making, but one we’ve inherited and one we have to deal with” as the assets review began under the previous Conservative administration.

It came about, he added, because the Conservative government has asked councils to look through their assets and savings before coming to them when in need of more money.

Former leader, Cllr Wayne Fitzgerald (Conservatives, West) said that he understands the need for the review, but that Peterborough First shouldn't blame the Conservatives for it because they can “stop this tomorrow” if they want to.

PCC does, however, face a rising budget gap, currently projected to be £3m next year and £7m the year after, and has been told by independent advisors to comb through its assets to try to make savings.

Cllr John Howard (Peterborough First, Hargate and Hempsted), now leading the review, said that the new administration has a “new look cabinet doing things in a new look way” including slowing the process down and visiting each of the sites.

Partly at the insistence of other parties, and notably the Liberal Democrats, Peterborough First has also overseen the publication of the list and has reorganised the review into phases.

The first phase, currently ongoing, is made up of a review of 28 community centres, libraries and leisure centres, while the second phase will focus on schools and education.

The list will be discussed at cabinet on 12th February.