Anyone who has been to the cafe knows what an asset it is
I WAS recently at the Sorrel Youth Café.
As the Echo reported, it is looking like it may well close for reasons unconnected to Government cuts. But it is a facility that we cannot afford to lose at this time.
As well as serving the youth of Mountsorrel, the café houses fridges and freezers to store food from foodbanks for people in food poverty.
The Echo recently reported figures from the respected Trussell Trust showing foodbank use going up over 20 per cent in one year. As was stated in that article much of this is down to the recent introduction of Universal Credit.
The Café hosts various other activities that are particularly important at this time: a special educational needs craft group (at a time when special needs support is increasingly hard to come by), the Sorrel Tots group (in a place that had its Sure Start centre recently shut), and the young carers’ group (when pressure on public services has increased the burden on them).
Your paper also carried a police story the other week. The recruitment reported will fail to make up for the 550 officers removed in Leicestershire since 2010.
Although the trustees have their reasons, it would seem we can illafford to lose youth facilities like the Sorrel Youth café that address the causes of crime.
Anyone who has been to the café knows what a genuine community asset it is: to the credit of all involved in the project.
I hope the community and councils can work together to keep it going.
I also hope we can stop the decay being caused by the cuts since 2010. Stuart Brady, Labour’s candidate to be the next MP for the Loughborough Constituency