Support is growing for a project to help give more facilities to young people in Haxby and Wigginton, in a bid to throw off a growing reputation for drugs and other problems.

Local teenagers say they want to raise money towards putting up a youth shelter or other building "to help get us off the streets".

At the annual meeting of the Haxby and Wigginton Youth and Community Association, they called for a building in Haxby village or nearby where they were all welcome to socialise and gather with friends. They also want the local youth centre to be open seven nights a week between 6pm and 10pm, and the coffee club in Haxby village to be open more often.

A group of enthusiastic Haxby teenagers gathered at the Ethel Ward recreation ground to tell the Evening Press their hopes for the future.

Aidan Ross and Gavin Scott, 15, came up with the idea of creating a Youth Shelter - an open building where local groups of friends can congregate and play games, even in bad weather.

Gavin said: "We just want somewhere where we can go to spend our time all the time, and not just at the youth club one night a week." Aidan added: "We have no activities around here and people think we're causing trouble just because we hang out in groups. But we are fed up of all being labelled as troublemakers and drug-takers."

Cassie Connor agreed: "People say we make too much noise so this is why we want somewhere indoors where we can gather. We would do a lot of the work, like the painting, ourselves. And we want to do all our own fundraising through sponsored events."

The Youth and Community Association's chairman, Eddie Benson, said the local police have backed the idea of a shelter being set up in the area, an idea the association also supported.

He presented a deliberately hard-hitting report to the meeting, which drew attention to recent articles in the Evening Press on police efforts to rid the area of drug dealers.

Community Police Officer Alistair Kennan said: "What the teenagers are trying to do is an excellent idea. They are doing something for themselves to get themselves off the streets."

Mr Benson told the meeting that Haxby and Wigginton residents had "experienced an alarming increase in vandalism and rowdiness on the streets, much of it we believe perpetrated by people from outside the communities who wish to ply their evil drug trade on the local vulnerable young".

But he said the meeting had been promising. "We have seen a lot of negative things over the last 12 months, but we were seeing a lot of positive proposals that could turn into outcomes before too long."

There was a shortage of suitable land in the villages, but the association was interested in using land at the Ethel Ward Recreation Ground for the youth shelter, which would be a very basic structure. In the longer term it wanted to see a variety of facilities for the young, in Wigginton as well as Haxby, on different nights of the week.

It was "absolutely excellent" that the young people themselves wanted to raise cash. The association now had charitable status and could approach other bodies for funding.

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