Showcase the Street helping to boot out youth crime

A Dundee football project has been credited with an 80% fall in youth crime in Stobswell.

Social Investment Scotland (SIS)found the Showcase the Street project, run in conjunction with Police Scotland, has delivered a “diversionary football project” that has stopped youths from engaging in antisocial behaviour.

Based in Manhattan Works, showcase the street boasts a 3G multi-sports pitch.

As well as football, it delivers dance lessons to around 3,000 children a week.

It received £170,000 in funding from SIS in 2013.

Chairman Fergus Storrier said: “The new facility in Dundee has already seen the development of new employability projects, work with disengaged school pupils, and most recently a project working with disadvantaged families, which is hugely welcomed in a venue that sits in one of the most deprived areas of Scotland.

“Without the investment from SIS we would have never achieved any of these, and that doesn’t even take into account the hundreds of young people who now use our dance and sports facilities.”