Young people in the Tang Hall area of York are being asked to play a crucial role in an ambitious plan to create a £120,000 "place of their own".

The Walmgate Forum has agreed to put £10,000 towards the scheme to build an extension to the Tang Hall Community Centre in Fifth Avenue.

The idea is to create somewhere for local young people to go - and to involve them as far as possible in all stages of the project.

Local city councillor Derek Smallwood explained that the forum's contribution was "pump priming" money which would go into design work and producing a business plan to be used to attract the funding needed to complete the scheme.

He said young people were often "running amok" in the area, but added: "What we have found is that there is no real opportunity for them to have a place to chill out."

And after seeing constant damage to the community centre when he held Saturday morning surgeries there he asked: "Why don't we let them have their own place?"

The proposed extension would have a new entrance, directly from Melrosegate.

Coun Smallwood said: "It will be a totally separate entrance - they will have their own place completely."

And to make the point even more strongly, the young people were being consulted on the design of the project, and they would also be involved in the building work, so far as was practicable, and under skilled supervision.

"If they build it, they will be less likely to damage it," said Coun Smallwood, who added that the project could also provide valuable work experience for the youngsters.

"The whole idea is to get them involved in something that is worthwhile, instead of something soul-destroying where the whole community suffers."

Part of a store area would be used to create a workshop which could be used for motorbike repairs.

Tom Gibson, chairman of the management committee of the community centre, said the scheme for the youth annexe was a partnership between the centre, local youth services and the young people themselves.

"It's very exciting indeed, the young people seem to be keen," he said. But he stressed it was at a very early stage - they did not yet have any drawings, though a surveyor had looked at the site.