The Youth & Community Working Group
Rural youth Survey
One of the Youth and Community group's projects has been the Rural Youth
Survey which was commissioned by the LADT. The survey was
undertaken on our behalf by the Somerset Rural Youth Project (SRYP). SRYP is a
professional body of experienced youth workers whose remit is to work with rural
communities to enable them to improve provision for their young people.
The purpose of the survey was to find out what our young people really
think about living in a rural community in the 21st century, what they like
about it, what they feel is missing in youth provision for the area. This is the first youth survey to be carried out in this area. The results
have been
circulated to all youth related agencies in the area and we hope it will help in
formulating future policy. The Youth and Community Group will be working with
these agencies to co-ordinate and improve future provision for our youth.
Skate Park
The Youth and Community Working Group was also involved in the
discussions and planning of the Langport Skate Park. The Park opened at the
beginning of September and is very well used. LADT helped the young people and
the youth services organise a special opening event on 5th October 2002. Well-known
band Babyhead played live, there was exhibition skateboarding and competitions
were held on the new park.
Town Feature
The Langport Town Feature involved contributions from all villages
in the LADT area. Workshops were held in every village to create a tile that
conveyed a particular feature of that village. The workshops were led by a local
artist and involved young and old. In fact people were so keen to create a local
tile that we eneded up with two tiles for every village!! The intention was to
have a feature in Langport town square which included a tile from each village.
You can now see this in front of Langport library. There is a map of the area,
created by local artist Paddy Mounter, surrounded by a tile from each village
and Langport. The remaining tile for each village has been placed in that
village and there is a booklet available in the Local Information Centre which
details local walks for each village and for Langport which either start or end
at the tile for that place. We hope we have created both an attractive feature
and encouragement to visitors to venture out to our surrounding villages. In the
future we hope to create some local souvenirs featuring the tiles and the map.
