Is a closed club fair?

Published: 9 July, 2010

• WE were disappointed to hear that within five days of the Mayor and Burgesses of Islington Council receiving our petition of more than 400 signatures to reopen the Rose Bowl Youth Club, in Essex Road, by the summer holidays, it was turned down (Youth club will remain shut over holidays despite petition protest, July 2).

The club has been closed for four months and may not reopen until next year, even though Canonbury Safer Neighbourhoods Forum said 75 per cent of the funding comes from or through the charity Friends of the Rose Bowl.

Islington’s Labour council has just brought in a Fairness Commission and in its manifesto it “believes that young people themselves are the best judges of the kind of service they need”.

Why is it then that they are being penalised by the decisions of adult councillors and council staff? Also, is it fair that the reason for closure is veiled in secrecy?

As the council cannot see to it that something is done for these children living on and near the Marquess estate, we have now written to Education Secretary Michael Gove and his minister in charge of youth provision, Tim Loughton, as well as the new Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke to see if they can override the decision.

The next step will be to continue our petition and take it to Prime Minister David Cameron.

When there are willing and able parents to run the club, what is the hold-up?

ORIEL HUTCHINSON, ADELE HAYTON, HARRIET WILKINSON, T WILLIAMS, ALYSHIA RODNEY, DEBBIE AGER, CAROL KING, FRANCESCA ANDERSON N1