A £500m backed strategy to improve youth services over the next decade has been launched by the Government.

In announcing its Youth Matters strategy, the Government said the funding will be used to improve youth clubs and facilities as well as bolster young people’s access to youth workers.

Of the money, £350m will be used to build or refurbish up to 250 youth facilities over the next four years and provide equipment to activities for 2,500 youth organisations.

Youth Futures Hubs, to help young people at risk of being drawn into crime, will be launched by March 2029, backed by £70m, ministers have also announced.

The first eight hubs are expected to be running by March next year in Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, County Durham, Nottingham, Bristol, Tower Hamlets, and Brighton & Hove. It was announced in July that 50 of the hubs are expected to be created.

A further £60m is to be invested in a Richer Young Lives Fund to provide youth work and activities aimed at disadvantaged young people, and a £22.5m investment in improving pupils’ wellbeing and development targeting those in 400 schools is another initiative announced.

Ministers also want to improve local partnerships between councils, charities and other support services. They have set aside £5m for this work, which has a focus on bolstering local information sharing and digital infrastructure.

Culture secretary Lisa Nandy, whose department oversees youth policy, said the strategy ‘puts young people at the heart of decision-making and begins to rebuild the youth services that were decimated over the past decade’.

The strategy’s investment has been welcomed by Local Government Association children, young people and families committee chair Cllr Amanda Hopgood, who said that ‘councils share the Government’s ambition to ensure young people get the support they need to flourish in life’.

But she urged ministers to ensure the extra investment is ‘backed with support for the workforce, access to leisure and culture’.

There also needs to be ‘ongoing collaboration with local government to ensure it makes a difference for local communities, and importantly, children and young people’, she added.