Tony Dobson

Conservative group leader, Hyndburn Council

FIRST of all I just wanted to take this opportunity on behalf of the Conservative Group to wish you and your family all the very best for 2018 and hope it is a peaceful and prosperous year for you.

It would seem that our focus on Accrington town centre is causing a stir throughout Hyndburn, so much so that Labour councillors Melissa Fisher and Ken Moss and former Labour councillor Ian Ormerod felt the need to comment on our proposals in a very negative way.

I noticed that they didn’t identify themselves as councillors or former councillors, for us within the Conservative Group all we are trying to do is come up with positive proactive initiatives to help our town centre recover. For us, no one person or party will have all the solutions and I’m pretty sure that you, our residents, are wanting us to work together constructively for the betterment of our borough.

In my last leader’s column I also said that I would start to profile some of the amazing organisations and people that we have working in Hyndburn and today I want to bring your attention to an organisation called Ynot.

Ynot launched in Hyndburn in August 2008. The initial aim was to involve as many local agencies as they could to provide a multi-agency body which could facilitate and co-ordinate services and activities to help the young people of Hyndburn.

Ynot Aspire now works in partnership with over 30 local agencies, voluntary organisations, schools and social enterprises who all work directly with young people in Hyndburn. We work with them as part of our Your Network project. In September 2011 we received five years of funding from the Big Lottery Reaching Communities Fund.

Over those five years, its outcomes included:

A 22 per cent reduction in young people not in education, training or employment

A 30pc reduction in youth related anti-social behaviour

A 74pc reduction in first time entrants to the criminal justice system.

Independent evaluation of their first five years reported potential savings to the public purse as a result of the project are estimated to range from £328,000 in relation to young people prevented from entering the criminal justice system to over £10m in relation to the life time potentially negative costs savings of those 458 young people, who as a result of the project have now seen their life chances drastically improve as they are steered away from being involved in anti-social behaviour.

Last year they underwent another period of consultation with young people and partners to discover what they perceived to be the gaps in service in Hyndburn and we got a resounding answer: prevention and early intervention around young people’s mental health.

This informed our second bid to the Big Lottery and they were awarded a further five years of funding from them.

We are still working closely with young people and partners to shape our new Your Voice project to help us to tackle those gaps.

Ynot Aspire is also committed to recruiting local volunteers to help us to run our projects. They offer a comprehensive training package to all our volunteers and also offer help, advice and guidance if you’re looking to get back into the workplace.

Finally, you may remember that in early 2017 I urged my fellow councillors to consider making cricketer David Lloyd a Freedom of the Borough in recognition of his achievements in sport but also because David never misses the opportunity to raise the profile of our town in any interview or commentary he gives, so I’m pleased to say that councillors will be asked to vote on this recommendation at our council meeting on Thursday, January 11 and I certainly urge all my fellow councillors to approve the recommendation that the man known as ‘Bumble’ be made a Freeman of the borough.