I was so pleased to be able to visit East Surrey's new Youth Hub last week, and I was delighted to be joined by the Minister for Employment, Mims Davies MP, as well as several local leaders from across East Surrey.
We had the chance to speak to a couple of people already benefiting from the Youth Hub, Tanya and Grace, who shared with us their experiences and ambitions for the future. Best of luck to them both - I can't wait to hear more about their progress in the coming weeks.
Once again, a huge thanks to all those involved in making this possible. It's been a pleasure to support this work over the past year from my East of Surrey Local Economic Taskforce, which brings together leaders from Tandridge District Council, Reigate and Banstead Borough Council, Surrey County Council, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Local Economic Partnership.
A special thanks to Mims Davies and the hardworking team at the Department for Work and Pensions, who not only came along to visit the Hub but have attended many meetings with us over the past year, listened carefully to our concerns and followed through on our proposals.
After visiting the Youth Hub, I also had the pleasure of meeting David Fletcher, who worked closely with Tandridge District Council to set up The Workary, which is a shared workspace located in the same building. The initiative was originally set up by David in Wimbledon but he's now working with a number of local councils to set up more sites across the country.
I particularly enjoyed my tour of their podcast studio, run by one of the regulars at The Workary. It's a really impressive set-up and I can't wait to record something for the podcast soon. For more details about The Workary, click here.
