A TEENAGE group known as the Young Ealing Champions are fighting to save their youth club from demolition.

The Young Adult Centre has been a safe space and community to many since the 1980s nut is now at risk of permanent closure under council plans to demolish it and redevelop the site for housing.

The YAC in Park View Road, Southall, provides leisure activities and is a safe haven for deprived communities at risk of violence and crime.

In the last 10 years, two youth centres have closed in the borough, say campaigners, including one only a few streets away from the YAC.

Neighbouring Hillingdon has seven youth centres and Hounslow five.

Young Ealing Champions is a committee representing young people in the borough

Kari, 19, a member, said: “I have been going to the YAC since I was 15, I went there every week and made a lot of friends.

“Children and young people go there for an escape. They go to learn and to socialise. Parents and families often come down, too.

I now work at the YAC with these children and see personal progression in them that would be impossible without the facility and the opportunities it provides.”

Ealing Young Champions have launched a petition calling on the council to reconsider the decision to demolish the YAC.

You can sign it here, and follow campaign updates on twitter and instagram @young_ealing

Ealing Young Champions are supported by the Young Ealing Foundation, a charity which brings together the public, private and voluntary sectors.