Stoke-on-Trent City Centre: Kickstarting city centre opportunities for young people

Youth is front and centre of Stoke-on-Trent City Centre BID’s plans to build back better for a post-COVID world. Projects range from Kickstart 200, which will see around 200 jobs created for 16 to 24-year-olds at risk of long-term unemployment, to initiatives to ensure the city centre feels inviting and relevant for young people.

When the words youth and city centre are used together it’s all too often in a negative context of vandalism, graffiti or other antisocial behaviour.

In city centres around the UK, not just in Stoke-on-Trent, groups of youngsters have frequently been viewed as problematic rather than seen as an opportunity.

According to Centre For Cities, a think tank dedicated to improving the economies of the UK’s largest cities and towns, young people actually comprise half of the population of the average city centre. They believe this is unlikely to change in the near future.

Stoke-on-Trent City Centre BID is determined to improve the narrative around youth and the city centre. For the BID team, Stoke-on-Trent is and will continue to be a city centre for people of every age.

Centre for Cities’ research reveals the country’s most thriving city centres are not necessarily the ones with the most shops. Rather, they’re the places that have figured out how to attract footfall by offering an experience people choose to return for.

The most thriving city centres, the think tank argues, are driven by knowledge-based industries such as marketing, finance and law. If high-skilled businesses move to a city centre, it says, then everything else will follow.

It’s not hard to see why becoming as relevant and inviting as possible for young people, and creating quality job opportunities for those very same individuals, has become a key strategy for the BID.
Kickstart 200, a plan to create around 200 new city centre jobs for 16 to 24-year-olds, is already bearing fruit. Around half of those jobs have already been created, including three new roles within the BID itself.

Sara Williams, Chief Executive of Staffordshire Chambers of Commerce, is also a BID director and is leading the BID’’s plans for business community support.

“Kickstart is really important for young people, not just in the city centre, but across the whole of the business community,” says Sara. “We’re very conscious that with COVID-19 young people have been seriously disadvantaged from making that first step on the employment ladder.

“Obviously retail and hospitality is often an area where people get their first work experience, where they start their careers, and obviously for nearly a year we haven’t had any of that going on. So Kickstart is designed to help 16 to 24-year-olds.”

Staffordshire Chambers of Commerce is administering the scheme for small to medium sized companies in the area, including the smallest of businesses that may not previously have employed trainees or accessed Government schemes.

The project sees the Government cover the salary for six months and the employer can access a £1,500 grant to help cover the cost of training and equipment.

“It’s a really, really important programme for the young people of our city,” says Sara. “And it’s also really important for the economy. It will help businesses, especially retail and hospitality, to get back onto employing young people, giving them the right start that they need.

“The BID team is really excited about the fact that we’re aiming for 200 young people employed through Kickstart in the city centre. The BID itself is nearly doubling its team size by taking on three young people through the programme as well. We have nearly 100 Kickstart jobs on stream already and others in the pipeline.

“The programme currently runs until December and we’re hoping we might smash the 200 target. We’ve had lawyers and accountants taking people on, any business can use this opportunity.”

For Sara, it’s doubly important that the BID takes a lead on the project as the BID’s directors feel very strongly that the city centre needs to be a place for people of all ages.

“We want to make the city centre attractive for young people and one of the best ways of doing that is by having lots of young people working there, so that’s really what we’re aiming for as well.

“If our city centre is going to survive then it’s going to need to be attractive, relevant and inviting for young people.”

She says that in the light of the Sarah Everard case, making sure the city centre is as safe as possible is a priority.

“I think we’ve been a bit lax on young people’s safety in the city centre and the BID is looking at how we can really make it safe for everybody, especially at night-time.”

Dawnie Reynolds is the founder and project manager of urban youth charity Ruff and Ruby, which is based in the city centre. She’s also chosen to raise her own young family in the city centre.

“We at Ruff and Ruby are very privileged to have a Kickstart young person starting with us soon, working on fashion and social media,” she says.

“I think Kickstart is phenomenal, and it does what it says on the tin. It starts something incredible, a window of opportunity for young people. This gives them a great platform to relaunch their hopes, relaunch their aspirations, to find their why and their purpose.”

Ruff and Ruby is also backing the BID’s plans to stage events to attract young people once coronavirus restrictions allow them to return to the city centre.

“I think it’s fantastic that the BID is putting on innovative events for teenagers,” she says. “It’s going to recreate a love of the city centre which has gone.

“The fact that the BID is putting so much passion and energy into creating these gateways for young people to come and feel safe, and do something purposeful and dynamic, is absolutely brilliant.

“If we want to create legacy in our city, if we want to see our city flourish, it’s about cross-generational cohesion, it’s about the elderly and teenagers working together.”

She says: “It really angers me sometimes that people think a bar and a pub and a nightclub is what young people want. Actually, a lot of the destruction in people’s lives happens in those places, and that’s a choice of young people of course, but actually we need to provide alternatives.

“It isn’t just about opening a new bar. It might actually be that a fantastic event, a place where someone can volunteer and do something purposeful, is actually fantastic.

“As a city we need to be putting on positive things for young people that aren’t necessarily embedded in the night-time scene where young people do get into addiction, where they do get into crime, where they can sometimes get into messes in their life.

“Anything positive that we can do together as a city to unite the young people of our city and to combat some of those social issues is absolutely outstanding. All young people need is opportunity and purpose.”

Dawnie is currently working with 47 organisations across the city on plans for six youth hubs around Stoke-on-Trent, starting with a hub in the city centre.

“It’s a very exciting project. It will be an amazing one-stop-shop for young people. We’ll have lived experience leaders there, instant access for mental health and amazing facilities like sport, literacy, health and wellbeing,” she says. “Watch this space.”

Dawnie adds: “We need to invest in young people. They are the now and they are the future.”

As the CEO of YMCA North Staffordshire, Danny Flynn is in a better position than most to understand the challenges faced by the younger generation in 2021.

The YMCA is employing six people through the Kickstart scheme as well as providing practical support for BID initiatives such as Operations Sparkle.

For Danny, it’s all part of a long term vision to help people for as long as they require it.

“It’s people who change your life. So often what we’re trying to do with young people is to give them that longer term view and to recognise they’re not made yet. We give people the support, we give people the opportunity.

“I haven’t met anybody who’s come to the YMCA from any background at a young age that doesn’t want to do something with their life. They might need some help to figure that out, but that’s what we’re for as adults.

“We love the Kickstart scheme. We love giving young people some opportunities. When people say Stokies aren’t motivated and don’t aspire, it's just a middle-class myth from people who don’t want to spend their time getting to know people. People might just need a little bit more help to travel to where they want to be.”

He adds: “Young people always bring a positive contribution and just because they’re hanging around together doesn’t mean they’re doing anything wrong and shouldn’t be there.”

Stoke-on-Trent City Council is also backing the Kickstart 200 project.

Councillor Janine Bridges, Stoke-on-Trent City Council cabinet member for education and the economy, says: “Kickstart is a really exciting initiative for young people in the city, providing six months of paid work experience to help them develop the skills they need to enter the workforce.

“Young people must be unemployed with a referral from the job centre to be a part of the scheme and we’re actively talking to young people and training providers to raise awareness of the initiative.

“We want to see young people in the city thrive and develop the skills they need to succeed. It will be fantastic to see young people employed through this and supporting city centre businesses, and I encourage young people to find out how they can be involved.”