A YOUTH group in Ludger-shall providing youngsters in the village with a safe meeting place in a bid to get them off the streets is proving a huge success.

Teenreach, which meets once a week, is run entirely by eight volunteers and earlier this year won a £10,000 lottery grant to help get it off the ground.

Now organiser Peter Gladwin is looking for more finance and says the need for such a group has never been so pressing.

At a meeting of Ludgershall Parish Council, he said: "We have had a really good response and have a membership of 80 and last week we had 65 kids aged between 11 and 16 in the scout hut.

"In the long term we would like to have our own premises as at present 65 kids in the scout hut is quite crammed and we don't want to start turning anyone away."

Mr Gladwin, who works for the probation service at Winchester prison, says he sees many problem people in prison who could have turned out differently if they had been given more attention in their early teens. The group also provides a safe haven for some youngsters who would otherwise be on the streets.

"People are becoming concerned and intimidated by groups of youngsters on our streets at night," said Mr Gladwin.

"It is a problem that is not going to go away and we need to do something about it.

"If kids are off the streets they are not going to be getting into trouble."

Ludgershall has suffered from a significant amount of vandalism in recent years but hopes that the youth club will re-open have been stymied for a long time because of a legal tangle involving the Charity Commissioners and Wilt-shire County Council.

The youth service has also been unable to recruit youth workers for Tidworth and Ludgershall due to high house prices in the area.

Parish council chairman Chris Williams said the groups request for funding towards a sound system will be considered through the regular committees.

District councillor Peter Richardson, who is a former primary school headteacher, voiced concerns about the lack of a professionally qualified youth worker among the group's volunteers.