Hopes of finding a suitable site for a teenage meeting place have been dashed.

Castle Point Council officers have spent the last few months searching the borough for a place to put the "teenage village" youth shelter without success.

Former mayor Valerie Wells had led the calls to find an area where young people would want to meet and which was far enough away from people's homes not to cause a nuisance.

Alan Longford, the council's director of health and housing, told councillors at a meeting last night of the problem.

He said: "I regret to inform members that I have not found a suitable site for a teenage village.

"The director of finance had previously reminded members that the teenage villages would need to be sited on housing land and its use proven to serve housing needs if funding from the housing revenue account was to be considered."

He told how a trip to Thurrock had been organised to see a successful version of the scheme and that many potential areas of land had been studied in Castle Point.

The memorial ground at London Road in Hadleigh, had been identified as potentially suitable by crime prevention officer PC Gordon Sinclair and the youth forum earlier this year.

But the idea led to angry protests from residents at a heated public meeting.

The few in favour of the scheme said it would provide somewhere sheltered and safe for young people and also be useful as a meeting point for parents during the day.

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