IT HAS been eight years in the making and now the first bricks have been laid for a brand new youth facility in Tadley.

As previously reported by The Gazette, Tadley and District Community Association was given planning permission from Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council last November for a new youth facility on land near the former Burnham Copse Infant School, in Newchurch Road.

The £900,000 project has been funded through a number of different organisations, including Tadley Town Council, the Turbary Allotment Charity, a loan of £150,000 from the Public Loans Board and up to £201,000 from the borough council’s Local Infrastructure Fund.

Tadley Town Council chairman, David Leeks and borough councillor Marilyn Tucker joined members of Tadley Youth Council and the Tadley and District Community Association last Tuesday to lay the first brick for the building.

The youth facility, which has been named The Point, managed by the community association, is expected to open in the autumn for young people aged between 11 and 19-years-old between 4pm and 9pm, Monday to Friday.

It will feature a cafe, large meeting room with gaming equipment chosen by the youth council, and a grassy recreational space outside.

Adrian Node, chairman of the Tadley and District Community Association, said: “We are on target to be completed at the end of October or the beginning of November so it is all systems go.

“Members of the youth council have been involved with it from the very beginning, with the feasibility study and the design study and they certainly have influence in what goes in there.”

He added: “It is a very important facility as they haven’t got anything at the moment.”