Potential New Youth Club for Houlton

Houlton is a large recently built residential area on the outskirts of Rugby and our store is in the heart of the community. We have recently been experiencing young people hanging around the outside of the store with nothing to do.

With thanks to PC Newitt and Jake Burton from our store, who are passionate about giving young people a warm space to socialise, a meeting held was held with Urban & Civic, the management company of the estate, and myself to look at a plan for using the community space next to our store. The intention is to run too time slots for different age groups.

We are now in the process of reaching out to both young people and parents to hopefully gain interest and and to ask the young people on their interests and what they would like from the club.

Our next meeting is with another Youth Hub so we can learn from them and formulate an action plan, especially around safeguarding.

This is a great example of how we work with partners close to our stores to support the local community.