Media centre

Tuesday 13 Jul 2004

£5,000 FOR SWANSEA YOUTH PROJECT

Region & Route:

| Wales & Western: Wales & Borders

| Wales & Western

Swansea Youth Action Partnership is to benefit from sponsorship from Network Rail for the second year running.  A cheque for £5,000 was presented on 12 July at St. Helen’s Rugby Ground, at the start of the Swansea Youth Festival. With the school holidays fast approaching, Network Rail uses such events to educate and warn young people in Swansea of the dangers of playing on or taking shortcuts across the railway. Kylie Sheppard, Network Rail’s External Liaison Officer for Wales, said: “The Swansea Youth Action Partnership is key to helping Network Rail promote rail safety as it involves young people in the promotion of community safety as they help to identify local problems. Our sponsorship can help young people be pro-active in their safety awareness.” Youth Action Partnership Co-ordinator, Dominic Edgell, said: "Our partnership with Network Rail enables us to jointly send out the message of rail safety, something which is very important in Swansea with the amount and frequency of trains travelling in the area.  The support and commitment from Network Rail is proving priceless in getting these safety messages across."             Ninety percent of crime on the railways is committed by young people aged eight to 16 and there is a crime on the railway every 90 seconds during peak periods (i.e. 4pm to 8pm in daylight hours).  Not only does crime on the railway cost some £260 million each year (see editors’ notes for details), but 60 people died while trespassing on the railway last year (not including suicides), six of which were children, and two of these occurred in South Wales. -more- Swansea – 2 Gowerton is a particular railway crime hotspot in the area with 20 malicious acts (acts of vandalism) and 26 incidents of trespass recorded in 2003/04.