A £6.4million youth project that seemed doomed after a funding snub by Bristol City Council can finally go ahead after lottery chiefs stumped up more cash. The National Lottery Heritage Fund, which had already granted £4.25million to charity Creative Youth Network to transform the old magistrates court in Bridewell Street into an enterprise hub for deprived young people, has awarded a further £453,000, it announced.
It means work can finally begin on the ambitious scheme called The Courts, with the extra money plugging about 60 per cent of the gap left when the local authority made the surprising decision to block the final £758,000 needed from the West of England Combined Authority (Weca) to meet the target. That decision, announced at Weca committee in April by Bristol deputy mayor Cllr Craig Cheney, was met with anger and disbelief from campaigners who claimed it was politically motivated because CYN was run for 15 years until the start of 2022 by Sandy Hore-Ruthven, the Green candidate who finished second behind Labour’s Marvin Rees in last year’s city mayoral election.
It was branded as “appalling” and “nonsensical” by Labour’s West of England metro mayor Dan Norris and came despite a letter signed by 50 influential Bristol organisations and individuals in the creative, youth and business sector urging the committee to approve the money as officers recommended. Cllr Cheney, standing in for Mr Rees, told the meeting at Kingswood civic centre that although the city council was “absolutely supportive” of the project, it had already invested £100,000 in its early stages.
