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Need for services
• THE Fresh Juice Bar in Highgate Newtown was a fantastic facility used by young people across Camden, with users also coming from Islington, just across the road.
Now, thanks to Tory/Liberal Democrat cuts, it has closed.
On Monday night users gathered at the Juice Bar on Chester Road to protest against its closure.
There, listening to them it was clear that the facility had kept them off the streets, had allowed them to discover new talents which instilled them with confidence and gave them some objectives.
Above all, it was clear that the Juice Bar was a source of social cohesion in the area with kids from different backgrounds and schools coming together, forming friendships and networking.
So why has it closed and why didn’t the local Green councillors and the Tory/Liberal Democrat administration not ask these young adults about what the Juice Bar meant to them?
The Positive Activities for Young People funding that Councillor John Bryant – executive member for children – refers to in his letter (Scare story, April 17), is earmarked funding that would mean a distinct cohort of Camden residents would be given priority over others.
The Juice Bar was about universal access, nobody was turned away which is completely the right policy to adopt when it comes to community services like this.
The gym at the Juice Bar also gave residents access to a facility that in the private market and as students, not all of them could afford. The council has an obligation to provide services like the Fresh Juice Bar, to allow Camden’s young people to partake in productive activities, which is not dependent on their ability to pay.
Without community services like this social exclusion will only get worse in Camden.
Michael Nicolaides
Labour candidate in the
Highgate by-election
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