Teen's Activity Centre

It's good to hear the views of Thornbury's young people. Some positives: the parks, Leisure Centre, safe environment and schools. Some areas to improve: nothing/not enough for young people to do, 'naff' shops, unattractiveness of High Street to under-18s, and lacking big retail names, 'trendy' independent stores, and places for young people to hang out. And some suggestions: climbing wall, basketball hoops, bowling alley, building a cinema and putting on regular music concerts and festivals aimed at young people.
Thornbury is a rather small town with a population about half that of Yate/Chipping Sodbury or Bradley Stoke. Whether we like it or not, our size means that we are much less attractive to big retail names who would struggle to make a business case for investing in us. And we should remember that even the youngsters of Yate, Chipping Sodbury and Bradley Stoke have to travel to Cribbs or into Bristol for cinema and tenpin bowling. Since significant growth seems to be off the agenda, we will all have to live with that fact.
So what's to be done to turn the aspirations into action? Perhaps start with better use of the facilities we already have? I don't know all the answers but I can illustrate the sort of possibility I have in mind:

1. Start by asking not what Thornbury can do for young people but rather what young people can do to make Thornbury a better place for themselves and the teenagers of tomorrow.
2. Start with something simple like the climbing wall. There is one at Thornbury Leisure Centre but it doesn't meet current health and safety standards. Meet with someone from Circadian Trust and ask how much it would cost to bring it up to a satisfactory standard. And check how much it would cost to provide qualified instruction/supervision. Circadian should also be able to comment on provision of basketball hoops.
3. Choose the first project and start raising money for it. For example, we don't have a cinema but we do have several halls and films are shown regularly. So why not organise a showing of the type of film that young people want to see? Or put on a concert?

Is it beginning to sound like killing two birds with one stone? Films and concerts raising money to subsidise sports facilities!