Minister for Children opens new MYL centre
05/10/2005
Beverley Hughes MP, Minister for Children, joined children and young people from Wythenshawe to open The Addy Young Peoples Centre on Friday 9 September. After being taken on a tour by young people the Minister described it as … “ one of the best thought out and designed play and activity centres that I have seen, and I’ve seen a lot. It’s very high quality and it looks positive and that’s extremely important for children and young people because it says to them you are valued.”
Beverley Hughes MP, Minister for Children, joined children and young people from Wythenshawe to open The Addy Young Peoples Centre on Friday 9 September. After being taken on a tour by young people the Minister described it as … “ one of the best thought out and designed play and activity centres that I have seen, and I’ve seen a lot. It’s very high quality and it looks positive and that’s extremely important for children and young people because it says to them you are valued.”
The new centre offers play, sport and youth work provision for children and young people from 0 to 19 years of age. Facilities include a centre with play, youth, IT and training provision, floodlit sports areas, a supervised adventure playground and a Sure Start playground. The new centre replaces the adventure playground on Brownley Road that has been used by thousands of local children since it opened in 1973. Children at the adventure playground and in local schools worked with the architects in designing the facilities and came up with the new name, “The Addy Young Peoples Centre”. Although the new centre has far more facilities than the old adventure playground, children have chosen ‘The Addy’ – their name for the adventure playground – as the official name for their new centre.
Speaking at the opening event, MYL director Tim Ferguson, said that the development was the result of sustained partnership working between a number of voluntary and statutory agencies and that the partnership approach would be maintained in delivering services from the centre. Agencies already working at the Addy include Benchill Adventure Playground, Benchill Outreach Play Project, Benchill Youth Project and East Wythenshawe Youth Inclusion Project. Sports, training and meeting facilities are also being used by local and city wide groups.
The cost of the £1.25M centre has been met by a partnership of funders including Manchester City Council, Sport England, Sure Start Benchill and the Willow Park Housing Trust. Further support for furniture and equipment has been provided by Wimpey, Shell, Manchester Connexions, Manchester Airport Community Development Trust, Wythenshawe Regeneration and Community Chest.