Information on Loughborough

Ashby Road Internet Cafe

Posted on 05/06/2007
Loughborough Newsdesk

internet cafe neon signA new internet cafe to give young people on the Ashby Road estate somewhere to go after school is being set up.

The café which is based in The Hut on the old Ashby Road will be open on Tuesday evenings from 5 June 2007.  Young people in the area will be able to log on to the seven computers and four lap tops between 5.30pm and 8pm after the homework club has finished.  Once the school summer holidays begin on July 17th the café will open three times a week from 3pm-8pm.

Refreshments will be available and two police volunteers will be there to supervise the young people and help with any IT problems.  The café is aimed at children between 8 and 17.

It was the idea of the neighbourhood beat officer for the area, PC 4422 Keeley Mansell.  She said; "There is very little in the area for young people to do and I wanted to try and find something that would give them somewhere to go and something to do and stop them hanging around the streets and potentially getting into trouble.

"During my consultation in the area I asked residents what facilities they wanted to see and the things they talked about were access to art and craft materials, music, sports equipment and internet access.  I put a bid into the Community Safety Partnership for funding and got approval to buy the computers.

"As well as the computers at The Hut there will be a Playstation, for the youngsters to play games with each other. They will be able to buy drinks, crisps and fruit while they are there and I hope it will generate a lot of interest among the teenagers in the area and divert them from behaving anti-socially.

"If it proves popular then I hope we might be able to expand the number of computers in the future and we are also exploring the possibility of setting up a football club in the area.

"At the moment we dont have a name for the club so Im hoping that the kids who come to use it will choose a name for it themselves."