Alex on the road - Nov 2018

Alex Wheatle

In early October this year, I was fortunate enough to be invited to the Appledore Book Festival in North Devon. It’s a beautiful part of the country, the River Taw slicing through the scenic countryside, where many big city dwellers have pushed up the property prices by purchasing second homes.

I was requested to speak at three schools: Great Torrington School, Pitton Community College and The Park Community School. In this region of the country, many students live on farms and small villages. It is predominantly affluent but there are pockets of poverty in the bigger towns. In my observation, I would guess the BAME representation is around 2%.

The first thing that struck me in all three educational establishments was the sporting facilities: Astroturf, basketball and netball courts, football pitches and well-equipped gyms.

Following my assembly and library presentations to students, I asked the teachers if their part of the world suffered from gang activity and knife crime. In response, I was told that because of the absence of local youth services, all students, including those who misbehave and have ‘attitude’ problems, are encouraged to join an after school club where they have a wide choice of sporting and game pursuits.

‘The kids don’t have any time to form a gang,’ I was told by a teacher. ‘They’re too busy doing stuff after school.’

The ensuing discussion transported me back to my secondary school days in Surrey and indeed, I filled my hours following double chemistry or some other boring subject, or playing cricket, football, basketball and running around a track. Whatever school I attended, there was always a dedicated PE teacher who was willing to drive a spluttering school bus so students could run at a meet or play a local rival in a football match. On occasion they had to suffer the splat against the back of the head from a twanged wet paper pellet as they drove (it wasn’t me).

My sporting friends and I didn’t have time to even think about a gang let alone joining one.

Turning my focus to contemporary inner-city secondary schools, I wonder how many vulnerable and impressionable students are encouraged to take up any athletic activity or even if their schools offer the on-site facilities as their cousins do in North Devon.

So many school sports fields have been sold off over the last decades.

I believe that the lack and neglect in sporting and gaming pursuits after a school day could be collated to gang activity. It’s an aspect of youth crime and its prevention that deserves to be looked into.

Recently, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Youth Affairs, reported that ‘despite the role youth work plays in prevention and early intervention (in youth crime) youth centres and clubs, including street work and mobile units have all but disappeared from some communities.

I know from my experience that youth clubs are struggling to survive, especially as local councils in many instances have ceased funding youth organisations. Indeed, in the last eight years, funding for youth services has fallen a disturbing 62%. Between 2012 and 2016, 600 youth centres have closed (Local Government Association).

What is obvious to me is that whether young people live in Appledore, Barnstaple, Brixton or Moss Side, young people desperately need youth services and sporting activities to fill those hours after school and at weekends. I’m convinced it’ll have a positive impact on troubled young people who may be vulnerable to gang activity and other negative influences.