HUSBAND and wife councillors Michael and Virginia Bucknor have stepped up their campaign to create a youth centre out of a Fenland Council owned chapel.

The Wisbech councillors believe the chapel at Mount Pleasant cemetery could be screened off and used as a multi purpose youth centre.

Cllr Mrs Bucknor pleaded her case to council leader Alan Melton last Thursday- almost two years after first putting the idea forward. “There are almost 1,000 children living in the Waterlees ward and by comparison to the ward you represent, Chatteris Birch, for example where you have just over 400”

She said many teenagers “ hang around our street lights in the evenings – just chilling. They may appear intimidating because there’s so many of them - but it’s because there’s no where for them to go locally in the evenings in a safe and secure environment,(apart from the Waterlees Boxing Club which FDC and you have kindly supported.”

She said the chapel could become a community drop-in centre during the day and a safe place for young people in the evenings “but still able to retain its use as a chapel as well.”

She said officers had worked for over a year on the project and it had attracted support from the church, police commissioner Sir Graham Bright, Thomas Clarkson Academy and MP Steve Barclay.

Cllr Mrs Bucknor added: “We’ve got an under-used chapel owned by FDC which has been allowed to be so run down that the clergy literally don’t like using it – a loss of income for FDC.

“Of course we fully understand it’s a big project but we also know that funding is available because of the recognised deprivation. “If we don’t deal with this now what will be the future for the young people of Waterlees?”