Teenagers in Birstall are being asked to consider a plan to open a community cafe managed and staffed by young people.

Members of the Birstall Youth Action Group, which in February polled young people in the town, are to run a six-week outreach project from next month to discover if a cafe could be launched which would provide youngsters with a meeting point.

The town lost its only youth centre in High Street in January after it was discovered the building needed repairs costing around £30,000. Youth worker Helen Smith said: "We'll be suggesting the cafe but it's up to them if they want to go forward with the project.

"We plan to get in touch with the people who filled in the questionnaire and ask them to take part.

"We're then going to take them to a community cafe run by young people in Hebden Bridge and we'll be inviting the people there back to Birstall so they can tell us how you go about starting such a project."

The survey of 120 young people, who were canvassed on the streets, discovered 90 per cent of teenagers wanted more spare-time activities.

More than half of respondents wanted a permanent meeting place in the town, a skate park and regular organised trips to places in the district.

The survey of people aged 13 to 21 was carried out aboard a double-decker bus hired from the South Kirklees Rural Partnership.

The group plans to re-hire the bus to use during next month's project when youngsters will be shown the full findings of the questionnaire for the first time - and will be asked to come up with further ideas from the results.

Outreach workers will be going out to publicise the initiative next week by meeting young people and putting up posters around the town.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.