Help us stop the commercial sale of Ramsgate Youth Centre
Posted: 27th January 2025
We’ve had two purchase bids to secure the Ramsgate Youth Centre building for youth services rejected by Kent County Council (KCC), as officers declare their intention to sell the plot at commercial market. This will result in the loss of the last remaining dedicated youth centre in Thanet.
Securing the building for community use is crucial to safeguarding essential support for Thanet’s young people amid an unprecedented socio-economic and mental health crisis. This decision is hugely disappointing, as our well-developed and sustainable vision for a Youth-led Community Centre presents a viable solution to the Council’s budget challenges. It would save this long-standing youth space for the generations of now and the future
We need your help!
Please help us persuade KCC to STOP the commercial sale of Ramsgate Youth Centre.
Raise your voice to block the sale at commercial market by writing to your local KCC Member. If enough people speak out, KCC will have to listen.
Step 1 – WritE to your local KCC Member requesting the building is not put on the commercial market when they have an offer from a community organisation within the Asset of Community Value (ACV) moratorium period.
Find your local KCC Member here.
Step 2 – Spread the word – share our request on your social media channels, tell your friends, colleagues and community groups. Every voice counts (and is appreciated).
Over 1,000 young people attend Pie annually on average with participants describing the youth centre as a “safe haven”, their “second home” and a place to “make a fresh start”, “make friends” and “find freedom”. Without this space, our current provision of positive and diversionary activities and creative opportunities for young people will significantly decrease or stop, as we will be made to find alternative premises.
How we’ve arrived here
In September 2024, KCC put Ramsgate Youth Centre, Pie’s home, up for disposal, in a bid to balance its budget, just six months after cutting the charity’s commissioned youth services funding. The building is the last dedicated youth centre in the local area, following the transformation of the former Quarterdeck Youth Hub in Margate into a Family Hub which focuses on Early Years provision.
Pie immediately registered an interest in purchasing the building, which has had ACV status since 2022. This kick-started a six-month ‘moratorium period’ for the charity to prepare a proposal and raise funds before the owner (KCC) can agree to a sale.
Ramsgate Youth Centre is listed as an ACV because of the benefits it provides to the social interests of the local community. The Centre ensures:
A dedicated safe space outside of education for young people to learn, build confidence, make friends, and connect with others in person.
A place where young people can take part in music, creative and social opportunities, receive counselling and 1-2-1 mental health support.
Young people have access to face-to-face support from trained youth workers, creating a welcoming place to go.
A message from our CEO Zoë
“This is crunch time for us. If we don’t secure this building for our continued use, there will be no dedicated youth centre in Thanet for vulnerable young people to turn to, at a time when they need it the most. We have worked closely with our solicitors to present two fair and sound offers of purchase, following our own valuation of the building and conducting the due process in line with KCC’s requirements. Despite presenting a fair and sustainable offer in alignment with this, we are yet to receive a clear rationale for its rejection. This move will ensure the young people of Thanet and East Kent, and their families continue to directly benefit from youth services, providing them with a place full of opportunities where they can thrive.
KCC has indicated their intention to wait out the ACV moratorium period so they can put the building up for commercial sale, raising concerns about potential redevelopment that could result in the loss of our facilities. Without intervention, the community risks losing a vital youth centre that has served young people since 1969 and leaving Pie without a dedicated base.
We need our local community’s urgent support to advocate for the preservation of Ramsgate Youth Centre for future generations. If enough people speak out, KCC will have to listen.”
A message from East Thanet MP Polly Billington
“Pie Factory Music provides a lifeline to vulnerable young people, offering them a safe space to socialise, express themselves through creativity, and receive vital help and support. Yet such services have been cut to the bone across Kent thanks to fourteen years of Tory austerity, with the predictable result being rising homelessness, knife crime, and antisocial behaviour.
Yet instead of boosting youth services to tackle these urgent problems, Kent County Council is proposing to flog off the Ramsgate Youth Centre and throw Pie Factory Music out on the street.
It is not too late for them to listen to local residents and save this asset of immense community value, by accepting Pie Factory Music’s bid to purchase the Ramsgate Youth Centre. The social impact if they don’t will be devastating for hundreds of families.”
The urgent need
24% of young people say they do not have a safe space where they feel they belong (Onside report 2023)– a side effect of the 73% cut to youth services over the last decade.
Young people spend 85% of their waking hours outside of school (YMCA and National Youth Agency Time’s Running Out report 2021 – without dedicated spaces to go to young people are vulnerable to grooming, crime, social isolation and anti-social behaviour.
Youth work saves £500 million on public spending through crime reduction. £1 investment in youth work is estimated to return £3.20 – £6.40 of social value (UK Youth and Frontier Economics: Economic Value of Youth Work report 2022).
Demand for mental health support has skyrocketed by 82% (National Youth Sector Census 2024) – youth services provide vital preventative intervention: 30% of young people felt more self-confident, 22% felt less isolated; 25% had decreased stress levels, 24% said it helped improve their mental health (YMCA and NYA Time’s Running Out 2021.
Youth club closures have led to young people being 14% more likely to commit crimes and 4% doing worse in exams at age 16 (Institute of Fiscal Studies Report 2024).
Thank you
Your support means everything to us.
We continue to raise funds to purchase the building, with every community donation helping us to get one step closer (we’re applying for large grants to secure the purchase). Find out more and donate at www.justgiving.com/campaign/save-ramsgate-youth-centre