Lightning Fibre donates free broadband to new Hailsham Youth Centre

The new Hailsham Youth Centre was officially opened in September by Sussex Weald MP, Nusrat Ghani, alongside town councillors and Youth Centre Manager, Andy Joyes.

The Station Youth Centre already had a successful trial run before the summer holidays, with nearly 400 young people having visited the venue within the first week of opening.

The Youth Service, which celebrates 25 years of effective operation in Hailsham next year, has had an impact on the lives of thousands of young people and grown from one operational base at 1 Market Square into an expanded service which operates throughout the local community.

Funded and managed by the Town Council, the Service provides activities, support services and opportunities for young people in the local area and operates the Hellingly Youth Hub and Monday Youth Hub sessions on weekdays, in addition to organising free and low-cost activities at various locations as part of the ‘Friday Night Project’.

The new Hailsham Youth Service building, at which The Station Youth Centre is based, is suitably located close to the town centre and recreation ground (allowing the Service to stay at the centre of the community) and boasts high accessibility levels with disabled access provided and nearly 400m2 of space for young people and the wider community to use.

The ground-level main hall, housing ‘The Underground’, has been transformed into a lounge-style space for young people and sessions will be free to enter. Various activities will be on offer and facilities include comfortable seating areas, pool tables, air hockey, table tennis, table football, board games, Nintendo Switch and X-Box.

Andy Joyes said: “The Station Youth Centre provides a safe place to motivate, inspire and empower young people in a constructive way, building community spirit and well-being. The new centre has already proved to be a great addition to Hailsham, and I believe it not only provides a safe space, but also gives young people a range of great opportunities just like the young people who attend the Hellingly Youth Hub, Monday Youth Hub and Friday Night Project receive.”

Within growing communities, provision needs to be made for young people. By running this new, much larger and inclusive centre, our hope of encouraging them to take part in the wide range of activities organised by Hailsham Youth Service will continue to be fulfilled!”

This abridged article was published by Hailsham New, read the article here: Hailsham's Youth Centre officially opened at new town centre location - East Sussex News | Free Community Newspapers

Photo: Paul Gibson, Hailsham News

Lightning Fibre comment: We were approached by Hailsham's Mayor, Cllr Paul Holbrook, and asked to help support the new Youth Centre; we are delighted to provide full fibre broadband completely free of charge to the building. It's an amazing facility for the town, and we wish Andy and his team every success.