Horizon Youth Zone is brand new youth charity, offering state-of-the-art facilities open to all young people aged 8 to 19, and up to 25 for those with additional needs. The Youth Zone will provide thousands of young people from across North East Lincolnshire with the opportunity to discover their passion and their purpose.
Located in the heart of Grimsby, Horizon Youth Zone aims to engage and inspire young people to try positive new activities and raise their aspirations. The Youth Zone is based on the successful OnSide Youth Zones model and is open 7 days a week.
You don’t have to book onto our core sessions (Juniors, Seniors & SEND).
Bookings are only required for our Project and Partner night sessions. These are limited availability and must be booked in advance.
Annual membership costs £5. Horizon is open to young people aged 8-19, and up to 25 for those with additional needs. You can sign up for a membership here.
Annual membership for the Youth Zone is £5, then members will pay 50p per visit which includes access to over 20 activities.
One critical factor in the success of the OnSide Youth Zone model is the voluntary relationship that exists between the Youth Zone and its members, i.e. the young people that attend do so because they choose to, and never because they have to. This is key to developing positive, healthy relationships between young people and the staff and volunteers – which enables the Youth Zone to deliver high quality, engaging youth work to those that need it most. It is also vital that the Youth Zone maintains its cover charge of 50p per session. Income from young people only amounts to around 10% of annual turnover but it is important as it creates a sense of value, ownership and equality.
With that being said, where members cannot afford membership the Youth Zone will cover costings as it is important that all young people have access and are not excluded.
Our timetable for sessions can be viewed here.
Horizon Youth Zone is a purpose-built facility offering 20 activities every session, including sport, fitness, dance, arts, music, media and self-improvement. The Youth Zone includes a four-court sports hall with facilities for indoor badminton, football, netball and basketball and a separate indoor climbing wall. There is also a fitness suite with the latest gym equipment and an outdoor kick pitch. The centre includes a kitchen and café area where members can enjoy a hot meal for just £1, as well as dedicated areas for dance, music, film, and multi-media, arts and crafts, gaming and DJ-ing, martial arts and boxing.
The building itself is accessible to all, including a lift, changing and toilet facilities, wheelchair access doorways, sensory room, and even an accessible climbing wall.
We can’t let parents/guardians past reception in any session, apart from our SEND & Inclusion session. If your child needs additional support, it may be that our SEND & Inclusion session would be a good starting point. As we are not able to provide 1:1 support or personal care ourselves, we welcome an appropriate adult to come along and offer that extra help if needed on those sessions.
We offer hot, nutritious meals for just £1 on all our sessions. We also have sandwiches available and a tuck shop. There is also free juice and water available.
Members are welcome to bring food with them; however we have a No Nut policy and energy drinks are not permitted.
The Youth Zone will provide open access universal youth work during non-school hours, of which all children and young people, including those that are home educated, who are signed up as members can attend. There is no daytime provision planned in the immediate future.
Horizon Youth Zone is delivered in partnership with OnSide, North East Lincolnshire Council and the local business community.
North East Lincolnshire Council, in partnership with the local business community, understood the need to bring a Youth Zone to Grimsby. Having seen the Youth Zone model in other towns and cities in England, they want to give young people from Grimsby and surrounding areas access to a Youth Zone and the benefits it can bring for the whole community.
Local young people played a key role in the development of the Youth Zone, click here to find out more about the Young People’s Development Group.
An OnSide Youth Zone costs approximately £10m to build, depending on which part of the country where it’s built. Horizon Youth Zone is delivered in partnership with OnSide and North East Lincolnshire Council, supported by local businesses and philanthropists.
North East Lincolnshire Council committed £3.75m towards the Youth Zone’s capital costs, which was awarded by Government as part of the Greater Grimsby Town Deal. North East Lincolnshire Council have also pledged to support the Youth Zone’s annual revenue costs.
In October 2020, Ørsted announced a £1 million donation to Grimsby Youth Zone.
The annual running costs for the Youth Zone will be approximately £1.3 million. This includes for example, staffing costs, equipment, support of volunteers (including DBS checks), insurance, maintenance and utilities.
The annual running costs are met through local authority support, local private sector supporters, charitable trusts and grants, and young people’s membership and entry fees.
The Youth Zone model is based on the successful Bolton Lads and Girls Club (now BLGC), where a combination of revenue streams, including private sector funding, ensures its sustainability and over time allows the income streams to grow and diversify steadily, increasing the Youth Zone offer.
At the time of opening, OnSide ensures that each Youth Zone has three years revenue funding in place. This allows the new charity time to establish itself as a key part of the local youth offer and demonstrate the huge value it can provide to the lives of many of the town’s young people. Over the first three years, the Youth Zone, supported by its private sector-led Board, will develop new income sources and partnerships to allow its income to grow, in the same way that all OnSide Youth Zones have grown.
Horizon Youth Zone is a new charity and is governed by the Board of Trustees. The Board is private sector-led and made up of local business people and representatives from North East Lincolnshire Council, who as volunteers will ensure the new charity delivers for the young people of Grimsby. As Chair, Mike Parker will lead the board of the Youth Zone. The day-to-day management of the Youth Zone will be the responsibility of a team of paid staff, led by Chief Executive Lucy Ottewell-Key.
The Youth Zone will create mixture of over 50 full and part-time local jobs and generate 100 volunteering opportunities within the community.
Horizon Youth Zone will act as a platform to help grow the total offer, with the purpose of complementing and enhancing what is currently available for young people in Grimsby.
Youth Zones aim to work closely in partnership with other local voluntary and statutory organisations. Horizon might provide a new physical space for other organisations to deliver their activities or services to young people during evenings and weekends. Other local organisations find they can reach more young people through the Youth Zone membership.
Horizon Youth Zone is keen to work in partnership with as many existing youth groups as possible. To find out more about working in partnership with email enquiries@horizonyouthzone.org.
One of the major strengths of a Youth Zone is the way young people from different areas and backgrounds are able to mix in a neutral space. Evidence from existing Youth Zones suggests that members will mix with their peers from different backgrounds, as well as with young people from a range of local areas in the borough as long as the offer is good enough.
All Youth Zones provide for young people with a range of additional needs up to the age of 25, through inclusive activities alongside the mainstream offer. Sessions are adapted for young people with additional needs and are open for a wide range of young people to access; including those with mild learning difficulties, through to those with more complex needs such as visual impairment and physical disabilities. Young people are given the opportunity to access a range of activities, including boxing, trampolining, karaoke, arts and crafts, cooking, gaming and much more.
We believe the vast majority of young people want safe inspiring spaces to call their own, where they can make new friends and have fun. It is not our experience that bringing young people together drives anti-social behaviour and the impact of other Youth Zones in their local areas has been extremely positive with statistics showing that the Youth Zones have actually contributed towards the decrease in anti-social behaviour.
We have a lost and found box that is overseen by our First Impressions Team. Our lost and found policy is that we will keep items for 14 days, if items are not collected within those 14 days then we reserve the right to remove the items – whether through donating to local charities or disposing.
Please email enquiries@horizonyouthzone.org if you/your child has lost an item on session.
We’re thrilled to have partnered with Stagecoach East Midlands and NELC to provide discounted bus travel for all of our members!
The Horizon Bus Pass will allow members to travel for just £1 on any bus route in North East Lincolnshire.
To get the bus pass, please fill in this form – https://bit.ly/horizonbus – and then bring in the required photo to pick up your pass on session.
Please allow three working days from submitting the form before collecting the pass. Please note, we can only give out passes on session.
