{"id":421467,"date":"2026-02-12T08:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T08:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/421467\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T08:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T08:48:10","slug":"youth-work-black-holes-in-half-of-all-council-areas-in-england-study-finds-young-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/421467\/","title":{"rendered":"Youth work \u2018black holes\u2019 in half of all council areas in England, study finds | Young people"},"content":{"rendered":"

Almost half of all council areas in England<\/a> have youth work \u201cblack holes\u201d with few or no services despite high levels of deprivation and antisocial behaviour, analysis shows.<\/p>\n

The first mapping in decades of youth centres across the country has revealed a nationwide crisis in youth support and significant inequality. Poorer areas in the north of England are shown to have been the worst affected by cuts to youth services since 2010.<\/p>\n

The research, produced by the charity funder Social Investment Business (SIB) and the University of Leeds, plotted youth services against the needs of the local population for the first time and found \u201ca consistent picture of youth work black holes\u201d across the country.<\/p>\n

Bethia McNeil, the director of quality and impact at the YMCA, the country\u2019s largest youth charity, said: \u201cHaving this data is critical \u2013 we haven\u2019t had anything like this in a very long time, probably since 2010, and youth provision has changed dramatically since then.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shows how it\u2019s much more fragmented and dispersed now. I\u2019m not surprised at the north-south disparity, sadly, but the sheer number of cold spots is arresting. Some young people probably wouldn\u2019t even know what a youth club is any more because they\u2019ve grown up in a time where that hasn\u2019t been an option. It should provide a jolt for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The research analysed and mapped 20,000 organisations across England likely to provide youth-related activities, and used this to estimate youth provision rates per 1,000 young people at neighbourhood level. They then created an \u201cunmet need index\u201d based on deprivation affecting children and rates of antisocial behaviour, compared with the number of youth services nearby.<\/p>\n

The analysis found that 48% of local authorities in England contained at least one neighbourhood with the highest level of unmet youth need.<\/p>\n

graphic<\/a><\/p>\n

In Knowsley and Middlesbrough, more than half of all neighbourhoods fell into this category with little to no youth provision but high need. South Oxfordshire, east Hampshire and Richmond upon Thames had the most neighbourhoods with the lowest levels of need and good youth provision for young people.<\/p>\n

Nick Temple, the SIB chief executive, said: \u201cAt some level there is a lot of need everywhere because there just hasn\u2019t been enough investment, but this research shows that in some areas there are still large gaps in provision, or what we might call black holes.\u201d<\/p>\n

As council-funded youth services have plummeted due to budget cuts, the majority of youth clubs are now delivered by charities, social enterprises and private organisations, making them difficult to track, and there is no consistent national dataset for youth provision.<\/p>\n

Researchers have said this makes it hard to identify the gaps where any new funding should be targeted. In December, the government announced its long-awaited youth strategy<\/a>, promising \u00a3500m to build, refurbish and equip youth centres across England.<\/p>\n

McNeil said while this investment was welcomed, it would not replace what had been lost over 15 years of austerity, and it was important to be \u201cextremely careful with where funding is offered\u201d to ensure it has maximum impact.<\/p>\n

Graphic<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe can see the impact where youth provision has disappeared \u2013 on education attainment, on young people\u2019s mental, physical health and wellbeing, on their safety and vulnerability,\u201d she said. \u201cOften that manifests as antisocial behaviour, but actually that\u2019s young people who are at risk. Young people<\/a> are telling us loud and clear that they feel the effects of that disconnection and that isolation.\u201d<\/p>\n

YMCA analysis has shown spending on youth services by local authorities in England and Wales fell by 10% in 2024-25, the largest annual reduction since 2016-17, as councils struggle to meet rising demand and costs for core services.<\/p>\n

Over the past 14 years, English local authority funding for youth services has fallen by 76% in real terms, a loss of \u00a31.3bn. Since 2012-13, England has lost about half of its local authority youth workers, and one in 12 councils now report having no youth centres at all.<\/p>\n

SIB, a social investor that provides loans and grants to charities, has helped governments deliver funding to the youth sector since 2022, including the \u00a3300m youth investment fund and the more recent \u00a330m better youth spaces fund. It has published its new research openly to ensure it is used to \u201cmake more targeted, place-based decisions as the youth strategy is implemented\u201d.<\/p>\n

Temple said: \u201cThere isn\u2019t an enormous amount of money to go around. It\u2019s not endless. So we always thinking: how do we make this most effective? Where can we invest it to have the biggest impact on the ground?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Almost half of all council areas in England have youth work \u201cblack holes\u201d with few or no services…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-421467","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}