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Wembdon Community Youth Project

Wembdon Village Hall and Playing Fields Trust has taken on a project to provide a safe, supervised meeting place in our village hall for young people from Wembdon and Bridgwater who have been meeting up on the Wembdon playing fields and Parklands because they have nowhere else to meet.

An upstairs room at The Village Hall was left as an empty shell when the original contractor building the hall went bankrupt, and a steering group of trustees, parish councillors and local volunteers plans to fit it out. It will provide a multi-purpose space which the young people can use in the evenings and which will be available for community activities in the daytime plus hiring for occasional business use which will fund the youth activities.

COVID-19 has interrupted all of our lives and social interaction has been severely impaired. We very much want the young people to become involved in the community of Wembdon. We have:

  • surveyed all secondary school children in the area to tell us what they want from a youth space and we will involve some of them in its running and management.
  • recruited adult volunteers from the community and from Young Somerset who have experience and skills in supporting and supervising young people.

The room will be available to all sections of the community and will be open 7 days a week. We do not intend to charge the young people an entry fee for the times when they will be using it.

The work will involve plumbing electrics, plastering, carpentry and painting and decorating and will mainly be done by volunteers and local tradesmen who will donate their time and skills. Vocational students from Bridgwater and Taunton College will be participating and will get building work experience on a ‘real life’ project and we will also receive support from ‘Volunteer It Yourself’ (VIY) which is an organisation which mentors young people to gain work experience and qualifications on construction projects under the supervision of qualified tradespeople.

Our steering group comprises

  • Peter Reed, Chair of the Steering Group, Secretary to WVH&PFT
  • Mike Solomon, Chair of Wembdon Parish Council and Trustee of WVH&PFT
  • Neil Hughes, Trustee of WVH&PFT
  • Kathryn Searle
  • Chris Escott, Director, Berry & Escott Engineering

Project updates

30th June 2021

16th August 2021

2nd December 2021

17th May 2022

The upstairs space at the village hall
The upstairs space
The upstairs space at the village hall
The empty lift shaft at the Village Hall
Waiting for the lift

If anyone is willing to donate time and labour (skilled in any of the above trades or unskilled) or is willing to be involved in the supervision and support of the young people when the facility opens please contact Peter Reed –
trustsecretary@wembdonvillagehall.co.uk or 07813 162 469.
All help will be gratefully received!

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