On Thursday 17th September, Town Councillor Diogo Rodrigues, chaired the first meeting of the Bridgwater Town Council Youth Forum which brought together young people and youth service providers under one roof to focus on youth provision in Bridgwater.

The full minutes of the meeting an be found here

Diogo said “The first youth forum was really a great success attracting representatives from 12 different organisations that work with young people in Bridgwater from Bridgwater College Academy to Somerset Rural Youth Project as well as a number of young people. The meeting held a good flow of discussion with every person making their opinions heard on the issues discussed that evening. One thing that was made clear by the end of the night is that there is not just one solution to the issues of youth provision in Bridgwater. It will take more than one meeting, more than one discussion and more than 12 representatives to develop ideas and solutions to create a better Bridgwater for young people.”

“We must remember that the views of young people do matter and the views of young people should always be heard. We need to hear the voices of the thousands of young people that live in Bridgwater and find out what it is that they really want, and we need to look at doing this through a range of channels including schools and youth organisations – something we will aim to do before the next Youth Forum in November.”

The Youth Forum is part of Bridgwater Town Council’s initiative to open it’s doors to the community on a delegate basis to bring more people into the decision making process of the Council and feed into wider policy making.

Cllr Diogo Rodrigues
Town Council Youth Spokesperson
djnrodrigues@outlook.com