DEPRIVED areas in Bridgwater could regress 20 to 30 years if local youth clubs are axed, a leading councillor has warned.

County councillor for Bridgwater South, Steve Gill, works closely with two youth centres potentially under threat, ReCreation in Hamp and the Rollercoaster in Parkway.

He has vowed to fight the closures, which he says would hit areas like Hamp and the Sydenham estate the hardest.

Cllr Gill said: “These clubs are vital; without them these areas would go back 20 to 30 years to the times when kids set fire to cars and other problems like that - it isn't acceptable.

“The whole community will be really angry about this and I am just gutted but we need to fight it together.”

The county council provides a range of youth services across the area with projects also in Victoria Park in Bridgwater and others in Burnham, Highbridge, Nether Stowey, North Petherton, Rooksbridge, Stogursey and Westonzoyland.

It also provides funding to other youth organisations, such as voluntary charity, the Somerset Rural Youth Project, based in Edington.

John Stow, director of the SRYP, said it relied heavily on county funding, which he feared could be drastically reduced.

“We are affiliated with 60 youth clubs which we help support and we help young people in a variety of ways.

“We will find the resources somehow to carry on and I think the community will become more actively involved in youth projects”, he said.