Framlingham Town Centre Youth Engagement project announced

Posted by on 28 November 2022 | Comments

Growing out of the successful MarketPlace project across East Suffolk market towns, First Light Festival and East Suffolk Council are pleased to announce the Framlingham Town Centre Youth Engagement Project. The project seeks to focus on engaging the young people of Framlingham to understand what they want from their town centre, how they can engage with it more and how activities can be created within the town that will resonate with a younger part of the community.

The initial phase will be to consult with local groups to create an engagement strategy looking at how young people can be supported to engage with town centre projects, initiatives and organisations. The second part of the project will establish a core group of young people setting them a challenge to plan, organise and deliver a town centre event that engages the target audience. The last phase of the project will offer one-to-one mentoring for a group of people looking at trialling various business ideas, including town centre market stalls.

The project was developed by East Suffolk Council who have been delivering a comprehensive towns development programme over the last two years. This has included providing capacity and skills to towns, marketing and promotional activities event support and delivery, and a focus on the roll out of digital technology.

Cllr Craig Rivett, East Suffolk's Deputy Leader and cabinet member for Economic Development said: "Through our towns programme and engagement with local stakeholders, a need has been identified for succession planning for future town centre projects and activities. This project is the first of its kind in East Suffolk to be developed with young people in mind and will act as a pilot which may be rolled out across the district in future."

Genevieve Christie, CEO of First Light Festival CIC, said: "We are delighted to once again be delivering an ambitious community-engagement project alongside East Suffolk Council. It is so important that young people have a role in steering the future of their towns, and this project is a wonderful chance to amplify the voices, ideas and ambitions of those in Framlingham."

The project will run until March 2023 and has been funded by East Suffolk Council and the Covid Channel Area Response Exchange (C-Care) initiative.

New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership is one of the partners involved in the C-Care initiative, an ambitious cross-border scheme which aims to support people at risk of exclusion from the labour market and businesses at risk of closure following the Covid-19 pandemic. The C-Care initiative is co-funded by the Interreg France (Channel) England programme and the European Regional Development Fund.