Member Article

New outdoor experience centre launched for Cramlington Voluntary Youth Project

Cramlington Voluntary Youth Project (CVYP) is proud to unveil its wonderful, new outdoor expedition and experience centre near Kielder.

The new Chirdon Head Expedition Centre will offer a fabulous, residential environment for fun and challenging outdoor activities and benefit hundreds of young people from South East Northumberland – as well as other similar groups who will be offered the facility at a reasonable cost.

As a measure of its importance to young people in Northumberland, Chirdon Head Expedition Centre was officially opened by HRH Prince Edward, Duke of Wessex on Friday 26th April.

The CYVP was founded in 1990 and is a registered charity operating from its own premises in Cramlington town centre. It focuses on offering opportunities to enhance the social and personal development of young people. Whilst the project is open to all young people, CVYP specifically targets individuals with special or additional needs – especially those with autism, Downs syndrome, ADHD and physical disabilities such as wheelchair users and young carers.

Over the past 10 years, CYVP has become renowned for its delivery of outdoor activities and is a registered centre for the delivery of Duke of Edinburgh (DofE) and John Muir awards. Achievements include 18 members of CVYP achieving Duke of Edinburgh GOLD award.

Cramlington has a youth population of around 4,500 with CVYP offering the only purpose built youth facility in the area. CVYP offers a wide variety of formal and learning opportunities to 300 participants each week with over 1,000 registered users each year.

A feasibility study in South East Northumberland highlighted a lack of suitable outdoor facilities for young people To help address this, CVYP was granted a 25 year lease on a disused cottage (now The Chirdon Head Expedition Centre) in an acre of ground in Kielder Forest – set up via consultation with Forestry England.

The charity Aiming High provided a grant for the first phase of the building work and on site activities are now complete, with a bike track, archery range, team games area and a climbing wall to follow. The main living area has 20 beds, toilets, showers, kitchens and dining room, dry rooms and power supplies from carbon free sources.

Planned activities including walking and expedition skills to challenge participants’ camp craft skills. There will be opportunities for mountain biking trekking and courses to improve technical ability and physical strength. Young people here will also be able to try kayaking and canoeing, learning agility and water safety.

Stone walls and land on site, nearby forest areas and Kielder Water itself will be used for conservation tasks and environmental studies and some land around the building will be a wild camp area with 20 tent pitch spaces.

Inside Chirdon Head Expedition Centre, there will be alternative programme spaces and meeting rooms, an education suite, café and workshop areas to deliver targeted work.

Rob Hall, Executive Manager of CVYP said: “All of us at CVYP are so pleased to have this amazing outdoor facility now open for our participants. A residential setting with outdoor activities is the ideal, fun and relaxed environment to challenge individuals of all abilities in a good way and encourage young people to achieve goals they never would have imagined possible, building confidence and esteem. We are immensely grateful for all the help we have been given to make this project possible – in particular from our generous funders and the volunteers from Sage Plc.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Kate Slater .