MORE than £1,000 was raised by the brave souls who tackled a charity abseil off the roof of Tavistock Town Hall recently.

The event was organised by Tavistock Youth Café with support from Tavistock Outdoor Education Forum.

Mandy Ewings, chairman of the youth café board of directors, said that although the sad decision had been made to close the café premises due to its deteriorating state, activities were still being undertaken and work was on-going to find the young people a suitable new base.

Mrs Ewings said: 'We are not dead and buried by any means, we haven't given up and we want the children to have somewhere warm, safe and secure, in a space they can create for themselves.

'At the moment we are getting ready to put our stuff into storage, for which we are very grateful to Peter Harding of Fairway Furniture.'

Mrs Ewings said the Zephyr music project, formerly based at the café, had found a new temporary home at Tavistock Community Football Club, and street sports sessions were still being run on Wednesdays at the skatepark.

'We still have our youth worker Vicki Lloyd employed until the end of the year and she is really concentrating on grant applications, and we are working hard in the background to try and come up with a solution.

'I'd really also like to thank all the voluntary agencies who have been offering us help in any way they can and contacting us to offer support — we really do appreciate it,' said Mrs Ewings, who also stressed that the Tavistock Trials BMX park in the Meadows is still continuing to run and will still be funded for its insurance by the youth café.

'The board of directors have all agreed to stay on — the only ones that are leaving are those that are off to university, and we have had one young person ask to join us, which is good, so our board is still fully functional,' she said.