By Jill Stocks
A Horsforth councillor has hailed the success of last week’s Youth Summit in Leeds.
Councillor Emmie Bromley (Lab, Horsforth), a Leeds City Council Youth Champion, described the summit as “a real day of engagement” as pupils from 12 schools across Leeds gathered for the event.
The Outer North West Community Committee Youth Summit took place last Thursday at Leeds Civic Hall with speakers addressing schools from across Leeds, including pupils from Horsforth High.
After some introductions by facilitator Kezia Roberts from Horsforth Walk of Art, Cllr Bromley, Chair of the ONW Community Committee, addressed the audience.
“I am so excited that you’re all here today. The reason that we invited you here today is so that we can have this conversation, this discussion, about what it is that you want in your community and what you would like to see across the city.
“These are things that we have the ability to do through the Outer North West Committee with a Youth Activity Fund.
“Across our city we are Child Friendly Leeds and this means that we really want to hear your wishes, make sure that you are engaged in communities and that you are happy and that there are wishes that you have that we hear as a city, that we make sure that we’re listening to you and that we can bring about in the best possible way for you.”
Cllr Bromley also outlined what the committee had funded in the past year based on feedback from that summit, such as additional Breeze events, art funding, holiday projects and Codswallop, a young people’s dance and drama group.
“Amongst many other things the event today will explain to you how you can get involved with Leeds Youth Council, become a member of the Leeds Youth Parliament, as well as get involved with the Leeds Children’s Mayor programme and other groups across Leeds.
“The Youth Summit will give you an opportunity to learn about democracy and what that means. I hope that in this room today that there are people that will engage with politics and will take the roles also to care about their communities in the future.”
After a human bingo icebreaker there was a presentation led by Emily Alderson from the Voice Influence and Change team, focusing on local democracy and looking at roles across the city for the younger generation to get involved in, such as Leeds Youth Voice Network, Leeds SEND Youth Council, and the Children in Care Council.
There was then an interactive session which looked at how democracy works including a project funding game before Ben Fraser from Active Leeds then re-energised everyone with three activity games.
Adam Ranson from Climate change then led the group in a series of activities around climate change, encouraging discussion around the issue through interaction.
Everyone was then invited to the council chambers where there was a Q and A session with local councillors and Leeds Children’s Mayor Esosa from St Patricks Catholic Primary School.
In the afternoon session, for the older pupils only, Lee Horne from West Yorkshire Police and Steve Harper from Youth Services and the 90 Minutes programme, were joined by Marcus Garvie from On the Verge, who gave a very hard hitting presentation recalling his lived experience of gangs and knife crime.
The day ended with a Q and A session for the councillors, who were presented with some searching and interesting questions by the audience.
Kezia Roberts posted on Instagram to share her feelings about the day.
“Had the absolute pleasure of facilitating the Outer North West Leeds Youth Summit 2025 today.
“What a wonderful thing to be part of! Teaching kids about democracy, climate change, and knife crime. Allowing them to speak freely and to help shape their own futures.”