WAVING placards and chanting slogans, demonstrators swarmed around the Civic Centre entrance to dissuade city bosses against cuts to youth services.

With passions running high, some of them heckled the Labour administration from the gallery of the council chamber as they held a full council meeting.

The protesters hope to be offered a reprieve for services they say offer a vital lifeline to young people, helping them to keep on the straight and narrow. Protester and poet Issa Farrah, 25, from St Mary’s, Southampton, said: “For some years during my teenage years I was helped by the teenage youth services.

“During that time I was making some mistakes. When I look back and at my friends’ stories, I would have been a hell of lot worse.”

Lucia Warren, 16, from Sholing, said: “If it closes, young people will have nothing to do and crime rates will go up.”

Campaigner Tash Smith, 22, from Woolston, added: “Why do they target young people, is it that they cannot vote?

“They know young people can’t fight back.”

This comes after city bosses, facing a £20m black hole, discovered they had more than £5m extra because of a better than expected Government handout.

Already the Young Carers’ Project has been saved with the extra cash. On Monday the Labour group will decide which other services can be pulled back from the brink.