Preston City Council calls for 'urgent meeting' with Lancashire County Council over city's youth zone

Members of the city council voted to ‘seek an urgent meeting with Lancashire County Council to resolve the situation’ at a meeting on Thursday, August 23.

It comes as LCC ruled out building the youth zone at Preston bus station.

Leader of Preston City Council, Coun Matthew Brown (inset) put forward the motion to write to the chief executive at LCC, Preston’s county councillors and the city’s MPs explaining its concerns over the proposals for children and young people in the city.

Appealing for all the parties to act with one voice on the issue, Coun Brown said: “Austerity has hit young people disproportionately.

“The last thing that the young people of Preston need is not having the Youth Zone that has been promised to them for so long.

“If we let down young people we are letting ourselves down. We have all got to support them through this.

“We are happy to enter into negotiations with the county council to get a solution.

“We want to write to our MPs to take this seriously for the young people in Preston.”

However during the debate members of the Conservative group threatened not back the move unless the authority also called for members of the county authority to get round a table with city councillors to discuss the issue.

Conservative coun Sue Whittam said: “We do support a youth zone. I think if we could get PCC sitting round a table then I think the group would support this.”

Before the successful vote Coun Brown relented and said: “We need to try to get to a consensus on this issue, it’s too important.”