A CUT youth service which helped thousands of youngsters and tried to carry on its duties on a downsized scale was unable to last less than a year, the Advertiser has learned.

The Junction, based in Junction Road, held a five-day drop-in service and hub for youth services in the town had £56,000 of funding slashed by Hampshire County Council in 2017.

After months of community campaigning and petitioning against the decision, charity owner Alabaré decided to run a smaller version, named “The Little Junction” operating a drop-in from its residential buildings also on Junction Road from June 2017.

But by March 2018, the inadequate space, facilities and dwindling staff numbers meant the remaining form of support for young people had to close its doors for good, leaving an unknown number of vulnerable people without a chance, the service’s managers say.

Senior foyer worker Chas Taylor said: “It wasn’t really viable from the start.

“It was attached to the residential area, it just wasn’t large enough, it wasn’t as welcoming, we didn’t have the facilities.

“We could have six people in there [computer room] and it would be packed, we would have 60 to 70 people in The Junction and it would be packed.”

Chas and service manager Paula Philp speak with nostalgia over the days working at The Junction, a safe space for young, vulnerable people to go to play pool, get something to eat or use a free phone, seek advice and support, use rooms for group work and training as well as a melting point where a “multitude” of agencies would gather.

Paula added: “It was basically a safe space for young people to come start to trust somebody. It nearly took a year for one guy to tell us he was sleeping in a tent.”

Chas added: “Some of them wouldn’t have eaten for three days, or seen their parents for five days, left in a house without heating — it’s shocking.

“There is not a lot we can do for young people that doesn’t cost money.

“The Junction wasn’t a total answer but such a varied thing for them to do.”

In its last year of welcoming the town’s young in need, 2,500 individuals were supported by its services on 7,226 visits.

Hampshire County Council maintained the cut to the drop-in service was due to other similar services being provided in the town, a notion rejected by The Junction’s management duo who say all other support networks are appointment based.

Chas said: “That was the beauty of us, we were immediate, I know just Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm but we’d open most mornings, myself and Paula would come and open up at 8.15 and there would be young people waiting for us, even more so in winter as a lot them were sleeping rough.

“All these young people are still out there. It’s not the people we met but the people we never met that didn’t have the chance.

“We used to deal with the nastiest children Andover had to offer, 80 per cent wrong ‘uns, but we could get them and pull them back, we saved lots of people.”

The charity’s Andover Foyer umbrella continues to operate other youth services, but the hollow skeleton of The Junction sits boarded up on the other side of the road.

Hampshire County Council’s children’s services chief Keith Mans said that due to government funding cuts the authority has had to make some “difficult decisions” in the last few years.

Councillor Mans said: “In 2016 we took steps to reorganise our services for children and young people, up to 19 years old, to reflect the need to deliver effective support with reduced funding.

"No grant application was received from The Little Junction for funding for 2018/19.

"However, I can confirm that we have maintained support for vulnerable young people and I recently agreed a total grant award of over £41,000 for youth services in the Test Valley area.”