The last remaining youth centre in one of the most deprived coastal areas of England is facing closure after a year-long campaign to try to save it was rejected by the council. The looming closure comes despite an independent report that estimated the centre is saving the council more than £500,000 a year in costs that include services in mental health, youth justice and social care.
Pie Factory Music in Ramsgate, Kent, is a social space for eight- to 25-year-olds that also offers services including counselling, employment advice, life skills sessions, assistance for young refugees, as well as creative and music projects.
Cuts by Kent county council (KCC) to youth services last year, which led to the change of use of a nearby youth centre in Margate, have meant that Pie was the last dedicated centre in Thanet. Thanet is the local government district and is among the most deprived in the country. Last year Pie supported almost 1,000 children and young people.
“When KCC cut commissioned youth services in 2024 we lost about half of our annual budget,” said Zoë Carassik, who runs Pie. “We had to make up the shortfall fundraising from trusts and foundations to keep the level of provision that we’re running here going. To be told that the building we operate from is to be sold in three months’ time is devastating.”
Pie has operated out of the council-owned Ramsgate youth centre for 13 years. However, KCC, which, since May, has been led by Reform UK, intends to put the youth centre up for auction in February. Pie put forward several proposals to either rent the building or buy it outright, strongly supported, said Carassik, by KCC’s Reform UK member for Ramsgate, Terry Mole, but these were rejected. The council has offered Pie a commercial lease at market rent but, Carassik said, this is far beyond its budget.
As part of its case to the council, Pie provided a report from business strategy consultancy Outskirts Research that concluded Pie’s work generated cost savings of £580,660 to the council last year because of such things as a reduction in youth offending and the provision of mental health care. The return on investment for the taxpayer was estimated to be at least £1.2m.
Zoë Carassik of Pie Factory Music: ‘To be told that the building we operate from is to be sold in three months’ time is devastating.’ Photograph: Polly Braden/The Guardian
The situation in Kent is part of a wider picture of cutbacks to youth services in England that began more than a decade ago. A report released this year by the YMCA revealed a 73% decline in funding for youth services in England and a 6% year-on-year decline in Wales between 2010 and 2024.
A growing body of work by practitioners and academics points to a need to focus funds on young people on the coast. Earlier this year, a report by Essex University’s Centre for Coastal Communities showed that young people living along the most deprived stretches of England’s coastline are three times more likely to have an undiagnosed mental health condition than their peers in equivalent places of deprivation inland.
Further work by UCL’s Coastal Youth Life Chances project found that young people in seaside communities were significantly affected by the limited education, employment and leisure opportunities available in such places.
Tom, 16, who uses Pie’s youth centre regularly, said he didn’t know what he would do without it. “It is the place I feel safest when I’m out and about in Ramsgate. If I come here, I know that nothing’s going to go wrong. I’ve made loads of friends and it has become a comfortable place for me to be.”
A KCC spokesperson said: “KCC, like other councils, has to make savings to balance the overall budget and protect services it legally has to provide. The former KCC Ramsgate youth centre building was listed as an asset of community value giving local groups the opportunity to develop proposals for the site ahead of the property being sold at auction. As part of this process we received and assessed proposals from the Pie Factory. We’ve responded, setting out a number of options, and understand Pie Factory is considering its next steps.”
The Against the Tide series is a collaboration between the Guardian and the documentary photographer Polly Braden and reports on the lives of young people in coastal communities across England and Wales
