BUILDING work on a community youth centre is predicted to start in mid-August.

Work on the new youth extension of the Warndon Community Centre, in Shap Drive, Worcester, was due to start last month but was delayed while plans for a new kitchen and changing rooms were included in the budget.

Dave Evans, operations manager with youth services at Worcestershire County Council, said: “We’re looking at upgrading some of the facilities and making them the best they can be. It’s about getting the best specifications with the money we have available.”

But the final contract, costing £1.31 million, has now been sent out to tender to wait for an offer by the end of the month.

Despite the delays in building, it is still hoped the youth centre will be completed on target by the end of next April.

In a meeting of the Get It Right Warndon advisory group it was announced that temporary work would be done to the existing community centre to keep it open as long as possible while the main building work was carried out.

The running costs of the new centre will be funded by the Worcester Community Trust, a new youth and community trust which was formed by the merger of three charities – CAP360, Horizon Worcester and Westside Worcester.

Members of the group were passionate that facilities in the new centre would be available to all ages in the local community.

Mr Evans said: “The more creative we can be in the design, the more creative we can be in getting the generations together and making it useful to all.”

An intergenerational project, funded by a county council scheme, is also under way to make a mosaic for the front wall of the community centre with a group ranging from an eight-year-old to a 94-year-old.

The mosaic, whose theme is ‘new beginnings’, is being made from bathroom tiles and mosaic tiles to create a landscape including birds, trees and flowers found in the local area.

Asked about fears of vandalism, Cheryl Fereday, senior youth worker for Warndon, said: “I don’t think there will be any vandalism because the young people have been involved in the project and have ownership over it. The relationships that have been built between the young and the old have been fantastic.”