The grants will help build 140 new youth centres and refurbish others in a bid to support 20,000 young people across England, Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer said.
The latest round of YIF grants comes as part of the government’s National Youth Guarantee, which aims to ensure every young person aged 11-18 in England has access to regular clubs and activities, adventures away from home, and volunteering opportunities by 2025.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said it has now allocated £250m of its £300m YIF to successful applicants following a previous roll-out in March last year.
Research from YMCA England and Wales in 2021 revealed youth services have seen £1bn worth of cuts over the previous decade.
Recipients of the latest round of funding include:
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Bodies in Motion in Pendle which received a combined grant of more than £1.4m to refurbish its Orchid House Gym and create The Garden Project to engage an additional 400 young people through therapeutic horticultural activities to promote a sense of wellbeing.
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Youth Options, Southampton’s new community café and training centre which has seen a £1.2m investment to offer around 100 additional disadvantaged young people training in catering and hospitality.
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Positive Futures, Liverpool, which will receive just over £1m to expand its Positive Futures Hub to include a sensory room, music rooms, art space, large sports hall and virtual reality spaces to support 250 additional young people a week.
The funding was announced to coincide with the opening of the first new youth centre to be built using a share of the YIF.
The Chichester Shed used grant of more than £420,000 to build a new space to support more than 120 young people.
Frazer said: “We have now committed to building or refurbishing over 220 projects in some of the country’s most underserved areas, creating more opportunities for young people to gain the skills needed to succeed in life and stopping them from falling through the cracks.”
Responding to the funding, sector leaders said that while one-off funding was welcomed, the need for longer-term investment “had not gone away”.
Jacob Diggle, chief impact officer at UK Youth, said: “It’s great to see this funding starting to make a difference with improved facilities for young people across the country.
“However, the need for revenue funding - not just capital – has not gone away. While these new centres are opening, there are already thousands of youth centres across the country that are having to reduce their opening hours and hundreds that have closed their doors for good.
“Increasing investment in access to quality youth work is not just a moral imperative, it has much wider economic value.”
Research by the charity and Frontier Economics found that for every £1 government invests in youth work, the benefit to the taxpayer is between £3.20 and £6.40.
