A YOUTH club has been resurrected in Wroughton.

Organisers said it will help get children in the village off the streets, while teens described it as a good place to meet friends.

The opening of the club in the Maunsell Way pavilion came as police charged a 14-year-old boy over allegedly stealing from Tesco Express and damaging cars. The teen is due before Swindon Youth Court on January 15.

Teenagers marked the club’s reopening with a Christmas party, sinking the soft drinks in between games of pool and bouts on the club’s X-Box video console.

Chloe Brown, a volunteer youth worker for Wroughton Parish Council, said: “The whole aim is to get kids off the streets and doing something positive. We want to give them a safe place to come and hang out, meet friends and make new ones, and just enjoy being teenagers.”

Youth clubs like that at Wroughton helped keep youngsters on the right path, she added: “A big problem is young people hanging out with people who are a lot older. A youth club like this gives them somewhere positive to hang out and stops that bad behaviour.

“Just being a kid in 2018 is hard. With social media, it’s quite a tough time for this generation.”

An informal opening earlier in December saw 15 youngsters come through the youth club’s doors, said Chloe.

Village teens backed the new club. Harry Rayner-Lovejoy, 15, said: “It’s something to do, rather than just mess around or sit at home.”

William Jones, 14, added: “We could go out to the park, but here there’s a pool table and an X-Box. You can do more here than at the park.”

The youth club at Wroughton has had an on-off past. Most recently, it shut for around a year over a shortage of volunteers.

In 2013, the club closed when the youth worker in charge was redeployed by Swindon Borough Council to its outreach programme. The club reopened five months later thanks to Wroughton residents, Chris Manning and Hazel Hodd, who had been appalled by the loss of the local service.

Chris told the Swindon Advertiser at the time: “Wroughton has a population of 8,500 and when the youth club closed I felt that if we didn’t do something to keep this club going there would be nothing on for the youth of Wroughton.

“What I wanted was to provide a safe and secure environment for the youth of Wroughton to come along to and meet in a relaxed atmosphere.”

Welcoming the opening of the new youth club this month, John Hewer, chairman of Wroughton Parish Council, said: “It’s somewhere for the kids to go. They are safe, they can chat amongst themselves and meet friends. It helps perhaps get them off the streets.”

From January, the new club will be open every Thursday at the Maunsell Way pavilion, 6.30pm-8.30pm. Entrance is £1 per child, which covers refreshments and games.For more, contact Wroughton Parish Council on 01793 814735.