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00:00 [crowd noise]
00:06 ... years, Lillian Behind You has ran the Junior and the Senior Youth Club.
00:11 [applause]
00:16 Five years ago the council pulled out Senior Youth Club.
00:20 Lillian has run with volunteers for 18 years the Junior Youth Club.
00:25 Now the Junior Youth Club is for the ages of 9 to 12 which I'm assuming many of you will know here
00:32 because your children are here.
00:34 And then we've got nowhere for the senior youth to go to from 12 to 18.
00:39 I'll come back to that in a minute.
00:41 The rainbows, guides, rangers all use this facility as well
00:48 which means for a number of nights in the week it is full.
00:52 The community centre has one night available.
00:56 The community centre has a wooden floor.
01:00 It does not have the ability to take all of the pool tables, table tennis tables
01:06 and everything else that the youth have got.
01:09 It has no storage. When you look around the youth building in a minute
01:14 and I don't think the library is open.
01:16 When you look around inside you will see the amount of storage
01:19 the youth, rainbows and girl guides and brownies need
01:24 as well as two large sheds out the back.
01:28 None of that is available at the Manor Farm community centre.
01:32 So which officer in the council thought about, did a desktop survey
01:38 that it could be moved to Manor Farm Park, I do not know.
01:41 The other key thing is we have got a secure playground out the back.
01:46 You have only got to come down here on a Friday night
01:49 and you will see how many kids are out there playing football
01:52 or whatever, basketball and everything else.
01:54 There is no such facility at Manor Farm Park.
01:57 It is grass out the back and it is not secure.
02:00 So we can't move there for that reason.
02:03 The library, you can see it has got card access.
02:06 It needs storage for its books, its computers, its network connections.
02:11 None of that would be able to be done at the Manor Farm community centre.
02:16 I know because I am on the committee of the Manor Farm community centre
02:20 and I know the constraints in that building.
02:22 It has got one night available only, one night, a Friday night
02:26 where all of the youth and youth people could go into there.
02:39 Thank yous, first and foremost.
02:41 Thank you to Dale and to Lillian for their campaign.
02:44 This is a village campaign.
02:46 We should be very proud of what they are doing.
02:48 I think it is a real achievement that we have had so many signatures
02:52 and the villages come together in this way.
02:54 So that is the first thing.
02:55 I just want to thank them for everything that they have done.
02:58 I want to thank all of you for all of your support in coming out today.
03:01 I was about to say on a cold morning.
03:02 It is actually quite warm, isn't it?
03:04 On a cold morning today to support this campaign.
03:07 Make no mistake, this is an existential threat to this building behind us.
03:13 This is a review and they are kind of looking at things.
03:15 That is right.
03:16 It is not a done deal yet.
03:17 There was no decision made on Monday to do it.
03:20 But I is a growing village and if we strip assets like this away from the village
03:25 then what are we left with?
03:27 A village is not just a place where people live.
03:29 A village is a community with assets and things that people can gather in.
03:33 We just don't want just houses.
03:34 We want facilities and amenities too.
03:37 Already the village is struggling at the seams really
03:43 with some of the infrastructure and everything else.
03:45 To rip this place out would be terrible.
03:48 To sell this building would be terrible.
03:49 Now look, it is a review and it does require a political decision to actually do this.
03:55 And that decision has not yet been made.
03:57 The first decision was due to be made on Monday by the council cabinet.
04:00 But I think you guys delayed it.
04:02 You were going to review it.
04:05 So it has not yet been made.
04:07 And actually, as a politician, I don't normally thank people from the other side.
04:12 But we have actually got the independent council, the cabinet member for finance here today
04:17 to have the courage to come and talk to you guys and answer questions.
04:22 And I think that deserves a thank you.
04:24 So we have got him here willing to talk about the future of this building.
04:28 But make no mistake.
04:31 This building, as far as I am concerned, cannot be sold.
04:34 The youth club cannot end.
04:36 The library cannot end.
04:38 I am with you 100%.
04:40 And I think, quite honestly, it would be better for everybody
04:44 if that decision not to do this was made now
04:47 rather than having everyone going through the wringer for six months, you know, this process.
04:51 Because I think we will eventually win.
04:53 With people like Dale on the case, with a community like this, I think we will eventually win.
04:58 So why don't we make that decision now rather than have this kind of problem for the next six months.
05:03 I promise you, it is literally a review.
05:10 No decisions have been made.
05:12 Part of the review is about the importance of communities
05:16 and the community involvement in these buildings.
05:18 And I can see from this morning there is a lot of passion and interest in this building.
05:22 And that is really good to see.
05:24 Our community and property teams will be visiting each and every user of each and every community centre
05:30 and looking at everything case by case.
05:32 And I assure you that is just part of the review.
05:36 There is no outcome, there is no decisions made.
05:39 But your feedback and your presence today is really helpful to us.
05:43 Because it gives us a real quantity of which buildings are really serving the community as well,
05:48 which could be done differently, which could be done better.
05:51 And that is what it is all about.
05:53 The review will look at buildings where there is no use
05:56 and obviously those decisions are much easier to make.
05:59 But also it needs to consider ones like this where there is a lot of community interaction,
06:03 there is a lot of support.
06:05 And of course they are the ones that we will be looking at very closely.
06:09 So all I can assure you is there is no decision made.
06:11 When is the next step John?
06:13 When is that decision going to be made?
06:16 Whether to do it or not?
06:18 So just to tell you guys what happens next.
06:20 The property and community teams will be visiting each group who uses the space over the coming weeks.
06:27 And then it will be looked at again in early January.
06:29 Every decision that is made is going to go through the council scrutiny process,
06:34 it's going to go to Cabinet for decision.
06:37 So really we are not going to have any sort of further news until early next year.
06:42 Can I ask one quick question and then we will hold it up to everyone else.
06:45 Can you guarantee to all these people here, these campaigners, that this is not a done deal?
06:49 And that we will, you know, what we don't want to do is just go through the process and then find out it closes anyway.
06:54 We want to make sure we have got a fighting chance to save this building.
06:57 Yeah Paul, nothing is a done deal.
06:58 Nothing is a done deal, which is why it's called a review.
07:01 And I can assure you that is the exercise that is going on at the moment.
07:04 Thank you.
07:05 It's brilliant to see the community come together and so many people show up to tell the council how important this community centre is.
07:12 The sad reality is that this community centre should never have been on the chopping block in the first place.
07:18 It is shocking to discover the council put our community centre and the library on the say-all list in July this year
07:26 and then for nearly three or four months have kept it secret from the community.
07:31 But now the secret is out, the community has come together and this is not just a campaign that needs to be won, it's a campaign that is going to be won.
07:38 And we saw today there is so much strength and feeling from the local residents as well, which must really help with the campaign.
07:42 Absolutely.
07:43 It's brilliant to see on a Friday morning in November so many people from different walks of life, different community groups,
07:50 come together to support Dale and the team who are behind this campaign.
07:54 The number of signatures on the petition already shows the strength of feeling for this.
07:58 There is no way on earth this council is going to go ahead with shutting this down or harming the community centre here.
08:04 What we really need though is a quick decision and it's great to see that all of the main parties in Peterborough are 100% behind the community.
08:11 That's why this is going to be a community win.
08:13 [Music]