Congleton's youth have laid out their vision for the town's future.

Young people met in Congleton Town Hall last week to discuss what a future Youth Council might look like.

Facilitated by community committee chair Kay Wesley and the Mayor's Cadet 2024/25 Barney Mitcheson, the youngsters were asked to consider how many people should be on the youth council, what age they should be, how often they should meet and what type of activities young people want in Congleton.

Councillor Wesley said: "It was great to have such a diverse group of young people in the room contributing their ideas to the discussion.

"Many of them had not met each other before but they worked well in teams, and showed that young people really do know best when it comes to planning activities for the youth of Congleton."

The meeting was facilitated by community committee chair Kay Wesley and the Mayor's Cadet 2024/25 Barney Mitcheson (Credit: CTC)

The Town Council had already conducted a survey, promoted by videos of Barney and Mayor's Cadet Haru Pepper on TikTok and Instagram, to ask young people in the town what they like about Congleton, what needs improving, and what activities they want.

The respondents said that the best things in Congleton are the parks, green spaces, sports, nature and events while the 'could be better' list included things like 'not enough to do', public transport and safety concerns.

Top requests from the survey included a climbing wall, places to hang out, a youth café and events for young people.

Survey results (Credit: CTC)

Those who took part in last week's meeting also heard about ideas generated at brainstorm sessions run by the Scouts and Rangers recently.

The group then got the opportunity to vote on their favourite ideas from the survey and the brainstorms, and work the most popular ones up into more complete plans for a Youth Council to take forward.

The ideas developed were for a coffee house, gaming centre, Halloween event and a water park.

Many of those present signed up to be part of the Youth Council, and suggested ways to get more young people involved, both in future meetings but also to have more voices heard even if not attending meetings.

Those at the meeting ranked all the ideas put forward (Credit: CTC)

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