On Friday 11th December Tracey visited the Kent Scouts Activity Centre at the Lower Grange Farm.   

Tracey first visited the Kent Scouts Activity Centre in 2010 and revisited the site last Friday to meet with the team and see the Centre’s transformations, which is being used extensively by youth and community groups, schools, Scouting and Guiding. 

Last year the centre opened a climbing barn, which a team of young people, supported by adults, raised the £300,000 necessary to build it. With thanks to the £163,000 granted to them from the KCCs Young People’s Fund and three years of hard work raising the additional money needed, the Centre now has over 1000 young people and adults using its facilities and climbing barn every month.
The Centre has developed their county office accommodation and a small conference room which is available for meetings/training for up to 50 people.  There is also bunk rooms, allowing them to offer indoor sleeping accommodation along with the green camping space. A full catering kitchen with state of the art equipment was generously funded by The Cobtree Charitable Trust and The Nineveh Trust and finished in July this year.

Tracey said: “It was great to visit the Kent Scouts Activity Centre and see first-hand the fantastic developments that have occurred over the past five years. It is clear how hard the team have worked to raise so much money and I am thrilled that, with help from government grants, they have successfully transformed the Centre to a real community hub which is creating many new opportunities for our youth. I was particularly pleased to hear about what a success of the climbing centre. Both as a local MP and as Sports Minister, it is great to see local encouragement for children and young adults to take up the growing sport of climbing, especially now it is being included in the 2020 Olympics.”  

For more information about the centre, please click here.