I understand that Bury Conservatives are considering disbanding Bury’s Youth Service, with options including inviting tenders from voluntary organisations and operating a reduced services amongst other possibilities.

Bury currently has Youth workers working in every township in the borough, running youth facilities and projects, bringing young people together and performing valuable work throughout our communities in dealing with anti-social behaviour and youth issues.

If this proposal were to get the go-ahead then the ramifications would be enormous both from the perspective of supporting young people in an often hostile environment but also in getting to grips with problems on some of our estates where youth workers have done tremendous work.

Lets see - do Bury Conservatives value the youth service as much as they do the rest of the Council staff or (following the pay review debacle) have they learned any lessons?

Watch this space.