Southend: Youth club 'gutted' after £1.2m grant is taken away
'Ready to go'
Lifstan Boys Club has been running since the 1950s and moved into its premises on Lifstan Way in the 1960s, with the Southend Amateur Boxing Club joining a few years later.A pre-fabricated building, it was only meant to last for 30 years, and its roof and floor were too costly to maintain or repair.
A grant of £1.4m to demolish the building and construct a new one was secured by EGBC from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport as part of its Youth Investment Fund.EGBC said around £200,000 of the money had already been spent on preparatory work and surveys. After its initial contractor pulled out of the project, it found a new one who was "ready to go" when it heard the rest of the funding was being withdrawn.Jay Solder, deputy county director of EGBC, admitted there was a "slight shortfall" between the grant and actual cost of the build, but his organisation had enough funds to cover it."But that wasn't enough for SIB to deem the project worthy of continuing," he told the BBC."I just couldn't believe that we'd invested so much time into a project, to get it so close that everyone was ready to get working - for them to still say 'no', it was gutting really."John Plummer, treasurer of both the Lifstan Boys Club and Southend Amateur Boxing Club, said he feared the two clubs would "become extinct" without a new building."I think that's disgraceful that it could happen," he said."I hope we find a solution but I can't see one in the near future."
The Southend Amateur Boxing Club has moved to a former dance studio a mile-and a-half (2.4km) away, but its volunteer staff said it is too expensive."One month's rent [here] is pretty much a year's rent at Lifstan," said Danny Neville, head coach at the boxing club and a committee member at Lifstan Boys Club."This town needs this club - there's no other youth clubs about," he added."There's nothing left in this town apart from computer screens and crime - the kids need us."Joel Brown joined the boxing club when he was just nine years old. Twenty years later, he is now the club's child welfare officer, but he is worried about its future."I don't know if we'll survive, to be honest with you," he told the BBC."To see it go would really be a disservice to the city, and as a Southend man it would break my heart to see it."
'Value for money'
The Department for Culture Media and Sport declined to comment, although it said that it has invested £145m into youth programmes for 2025-26.A spokesperson for SIB said: "We appreciate how disappointing the loss of funding will have been for Essex Boys and Girls Club"."The withdrawal of funding is never a step we want to take and is only ever a last resort."But the spokesperson said it had to apply "a thorough and consistent approach to all projects as part of managing the funds for DCMS". "Whilst the Youth Investment Fund seeks to support as many young people as possible in a meaningful way, with nearly 200 projects successfully completed, it also needs to be confident that projects can be delivered successfully within the timescales of the fund and represent good value for money," they added.
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