Councillor’s fears for future of East End youth cafe after cash blow

AN East End youth cafe is among one of the 134 Glasgow charities and groups to be potentially knocked back from lifeline funding.

Fuse Youth Cafe on Shettleston Road is now facing a financial stress – after council officials proposed to reject the enterprise from three years’ worth of vital cash. A total of 133 other city charities, programmes, groups and third sector- organisations will also miss out on £ 77million worth of grants from the Glasgow Communities Fund.

Applications for the grants exceeded £ 57m made available through the fund – which led council chiefs to adopt a point- scoring process to allow them to award the cash.

Local councillor and Glasgow Tory group leader, Thomas Kerr, has since hit out at the authority’s bid not to allocate the funds to the East End enterprise.

Fuse Youth Cafe provides a variety of services to more than 500 young people in an area that suffers from high levels of deprivation.

It offers a safe place for young people with a café area, gig space, annex and internet café and helps to provide support for formal learning, including homework help, as well as access to further education, training, employability skills, and job seeking.

Conservative group leader, Thomas

Kerr, said: “My group has no representation on the North East Community Planning Partnership despite it making decisions on matters directly affecting my constituents in Shettleston.

“I am very worried by plans to refuse funding to the Fuse Youth Café whose services support over five hundred regular users across their programmes as well as fifteen jobs, 25 volunteer work experience placements, and the opportunity for 150 young people to gain accreditation.

“My ward has amongst the highest levels of deprivation in the whole of Scotland so a decision like this to strip youth services from the heart of our community really is devastating.

“The Café has continued to run its services during lockdown and provide support to young people locally and I think it’s shocking that this is the thanks it gets from the council.

“The East End has always gotten a raw deal from successive Labour and SNP administrations and it’s time for that to stop.

“I’m calling on members of the Planning Partnership to scrutinise these proposals in detail and stand up for youth services in Shettleston.”

The local authority has since announced a £ 4m transition fund – which will allow groups and charities rejected from the Glasgow Communities Fund to apply for lifeline cash.

Those eligible to apply from the fund include the advice sector, violence against women organisations, communities of interest and equalities groups.

Additional funding has also been identified for arts organisations.

A Glasgow City Council spokesman said: “Demand for grant support has been exceptional – with applications received for well over double the total value of the fund.

“Unfortunately, this was always going to mean disappointment for some organisations with applications that scored less highly during assessment.

“Decisions on local awards will be made by community planning sector partnerships next week.”