Open all hours? (December 2001)

Over the past few years there have been a growing number of complaints relating to youth disorder throughout Edinburgh. While some of these complaints relate to serious incidents, a large number only involve groups of young people causing a minor disturbance through hanging around in areas that make residents uncomfortable.

When questioned why they hang about on the streets many of the culprits answers will be along the lines of 'there isn't anything else to do.' Hopefully this is about to change as the New Year will see youth clubs throughout the city extending their opening hours to suit young people.

This policy came about after the successful pilot of the 'Open All Hours' programme that ran in South Edinburgh during February and March this year. As well as offering the normal youth club activities of table tennis and pool, the clubs extend their programme to include such activities as web design and digital image workshops.

Combined with the involvement of Gracemount Leisure Centre, an average of 200 young people participated in the scheme each weekend and the facilities were accessed 1657 times during the project's lifetime. The most popular activity was the award-winning SENET IT Centre at Gilmerton Community Centre.

The extension of 'Open All Hours' is due to be implicated from January and will involve a number of activities across Edinburgh. At the time of going to press a full list of participating centres was not available, so see the next issue of the Echo for further details.

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