RESIDENTS and community leaders are asking Newport council chiefs to provide more facilities for young people - and help reduce crime on the city's streets.

An analysis of the first year of Newport city council's involvement in the Wales Programme for Improvement (WPI) was published for a cabinet meeting.

The report included the results of a public consultation on local services and will be used to form the basis of the city council's Improve-ment Plan for 2003/4, to be published in June 2003.

The analysis showed that in December 2002, the community identified 'reducing crime' and 'providing more facilities for young people' as two of its top ten most pressing needs. Cabinet Member for Young People John Pembridge (pictured) admitted that a more "collaborative, joined-up way of thinking" is needed to improve community safety.

Councillor Pembridge told the cabinet: "Every councillor has spoken at full council meetings about community safety in their ward.

"What they're often talking about is young people who stand on street corners causing problems and yet we continue to close youth clubs."

Liswerry resident and mother-of-two Sharon Davis, of Somerton Road, echoed the need for more facilities for her sons aged 12 and 14.

Mrs Davis said: "There's nowhere to go and little to do for local kids, so some stand around near the shops getting into mischief, breaking into cars and so on." The views was also shared by Liswerry councillor Joan Jepps, who made clear her unhappiness at a meeting last Wednesday that two new community centres in Moreland Park and Somerton had been left out of a suggested programme for this year's capital spending.

A report at the culture and recreation scrutiny forum on Wednesday suggested that the two centres would be built if 50 per cent of the funding was made available through European grant aid.

However, council officers attending the meeting said they believed the council would need a far higher percentage of funding from Europe to make the centres realistic possibilities.

Councillor Jepps told the Argus: "There is a small community centre in a converted classroom in Moreland Park but it is not big enough to function properly. If a community centre was built and designed properly, the youth could be using computers and playing for sports teams.

"The cost of such a centre could be £250,000 but we have to make that money available for young people."

Newport city council has said it is already aware of the need for effective partnerships in dealing with community safety issues.