As any councillor knows, making sure we consider the views of all our residents is essential to shaping the future of our areas.
At Folkestone & Hythe District Council, we have been looking at how to better engage young people for some time, and I was delighted to welcome 45 local students to the council chamber late last month, for the first meeting of our new youth forum.
Representatives from most secondary schools and colleges in the district, as well as a local youth group, joined us to make sure we had a good cross-section of views, and the buzz in the chamber was palpable as everyone filed in.
We worked with lots of young people last year as we developed our corporate plan, and used feedback from that exercise to shape an agenda that focused on the issues that came up the most – the environment and community safety.
Members of the forum came up with some fantastic ideas to use micro-grants of up to £1,000 to spearhead environmental initiatives in their communities, from tree planting and bird boxes to education and activism days. We look forward to receiving their bids for grants and seeing those ideas come to life.
It was great to welcome members of our community safety partnership – including council officers and the police – to the session, so they could hear young people’s views directly and explain their roles.
The young people pointed out particular areas where they felt unsafe, and we had an excellent discussion about what to do in different situations and where to get help. Some members of the forum will join the team on a ‘walk and talk’, to identify areas where we can most usefully invest funds to improve community safety.
We also gave everyone the chance to ask questions of councillors – and there was no holding back!
Members of the forum were keen to know more about: monitoring safety across the district; how we tackle violence against women and girls; what we are doing with our partners on school attendance; climate action; and how we work with the community to make sure everyone plays their part in safeguarding.
It was particularly interesting to hear how members of the forum prioritised some of our key areas of work: safety was top for more than half of the forum, while affordable housing was also a popular choice.
Our younger residents were keenly aware that house prices in the area and our population are rising – not least because of recent positive news coverage for our main town – and were understandably concerned about what this meant for them as they approached adulthood.
This is something the council is very focused on, and it was enormously helpful to hear the young people’s perspectives.
I’m looking forward to finding lots more opportunities to work with the forum and our wider youth population over the coming months, and am very grateful to the officers and councillors who made our first meeting such a success
- See Folkestone and Hythe Council website to find out more about the council’s work.