Melksham youth worker heavily praised despite looming redundancy

Ceri Evans, 37, who has worked as a youth officer since October 2014, was highly praised by councillor and organiser of youth group Young Melksham, Jon Hubbard, for his significant work with young people in the community.

It was reported last month that 11 of the remaining 18 youth workers at Wiltshire Council face redundancy, leaving just seven officers for the county’s 100,000 children.

Mr Hubbard said: “Ceri has been an outstanding resource for our town and has been involved in a whole host of things with Young Melksham.

“He has been doing the Spice Time Credits, which is a scheme where young people can volunteer to take part in various activities and receive a credit for every hour of work they do.

“Ceri has been central to doing this and we are not sure how we can continue if we lose him.

“He has played a significant role in everything. No one is irreplaceable but really you need someone to replace them with.”

In May 2014 Wiltshire Council announced that the number of youth workers was to be cut from 144 to just 25.

The council told staff that the remaining roles of community youth officers were to be scrapped to be replaced with just seven staff to be known as locality youth facilitators.

Mr Evans said: “I am flattered by the praise from Mr Hubbard. We have a well-established Local Youth Network in Melksham with a variety of members from different backgrounds from within the community.

“We have four amazing young people on the Local Youth Network Management Group who regularly present at the area board.

“They make recommendations on funding applications based on the information they receive from community groups bidding for projects.

“We have worked with a local charity Young Melksham to reopen the old Wiltshire Council run youth centre for a period of two years and the centre now delivers three open access club nights a week and holiday activities."