Tesco’s MOUNTSORREL POST plan for pub YOUR FREE COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
JUNE 2011
www.birstallpost.co.uk
No. 35
Pic: (l-r) Youth Worker Sarah Bibb, Chairman of the Sorrel Youth Café John Doyle and the Chairman of Leicestershire County Council, Peter Osborne
TESCO’S PLANS to convert an empty Mountsorrel pub into a Tesco Express convenience store have been submitted to Charnwood Borough Council. Tesco’s plans for the Stag and Pheasant at 109 Leicester Road include alterations to the frontage, installation of an ATM, an externally illuminated sign and raising part of the ground floor roof by between 0.5 and 1 metre.
Youth café opened YOUNG PEOPLE, sponsors and volunteers filled Mountsorrel’s Youth Café for its official opening in March. Chairman of the Sorrel Youth Café John Doyle outlined the history of the project and thanked all its supporters before the Chairman of the County Council, Peter Osborne, unveiled a plaque. The café is open to young people after school until 5.30pm and in the evening from 6.30-8.30pm on Monday, Tuesday,
café to look and what activities they would like to see here. Because so many of the young people have had some kind of involvement in the project, a majority of young people feel as if the café is their space and are happy to call it their own. “During the week a large number of young people drop in to use the space,
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Pic: guests at the opening of the Sorrel Youth Café
Thursday and Friday. It aims to be a place where young people can meet, eat, drink and talk, take part in activities and access youth services. Speaking at the opening event Youth Worker Sarah Bibb said: “During the time Sorrel Youth Café has been open it has come into contact with over 100 different young people, all of whom have benefited from the project in their own ways. Some of these young people have had great involvement in the project by helping write funding applications, feeding back their ideas about how they would like the
er opening. With the space being a youth café, rather than a youth club it means that there is no lower or upper age limit, which means the facility doesn’t restrict
and benefit from it. The most young people we tend to have per opening is 25 and recently we have tended to have had at least 15 young people in the youth café at any given time. Since we’ve been open for the full eight sessions word has spread an d a great number of individuals we have never met before have started to drop in on a regular basis. “A majority of those who use the café are aged between 11 and 18, but what has been a delight to see recently, is the number of younger brothers and sisters who come into the café during our earli-
Pic: the old Stag & Pheasant
Public houses can be converted into shops without requiring planning permission. Because the pub is within the Mountsorrel Conservation Area, permission is required for changes to the frontage of the building. Tesco say that: “The Express store will offer a service to local residents. By providing a wider range of goods locally and an attractive modern store, the proposal will encourage more shoppers to use the area for their day to day shopContinued on page 2