Pie Factory Music’s fight to save the building it calls home

For over 23 years, Pie Factory Music has worked with young people in Ramsgate, and for more than ten of those it has operated out of Ramsgate Youth Centre. However, in April 2024, the charity - along with youth services across Thanet - saw its funding cut by Kent County Council. It was then told that the building it calls home would be put up for sale. 

“We've moved before,” says CEO Zoë Carassik. “We could move again. But for me, it's the symbolism of the fact that this building was built in 1969 as a youth centre. You're talking about generations of lives, of stories, of experiences and memories that would just disappear.

“This is the last dedicated, purpose built youth centre in our district,” she adds. “I think it would be a travesty if this was lost.”

The charity hopes to buy the building itself, allowing it to continue to offer a wide range of services, from recording sessions for budding musicians to free counselling. However, despite launching a campaign to raise £500,000 to fund the purchase, the council plans to put the building up for auction later this year. 

“Pie will survive,” she says. “Pie has always been an agile and reactive organisation. Even if this building is sold, we'll move somewhere else.”

However, moving to a new site would change the provision offered, and would likely mean that decisions would have to be made about reducing or cutting some services.

“It would be very unlikely that we'd find a comparable facility somewhere else,” says Zoë. “So there would be compromises in terms of what we were able to carry on running. We have a recording studio here; you can't just up that and plant it. You could, but it would probably be a choice of that or a football court. And here we’ve got both.”

“What's really important is that our provision speaks to any young person,” she continues. “The more targeted you get, the more you're closing doors, and what we're all about here is open doors.”

Pie Factory Music launched in 2002, initially running hip hop and grime workshops around Thanet. In those early days, its team went out and found young people, rather than waiting for them to come to them. 

“For many years, we had what we called a mobile music unit,” Zoë explains. “It was basically a van with decks and speakers that went out to street corners and parks and the beach doing satellite music workshops.”

Pie’s first physical base was on Chapel Road in Ramsgate, in what is now the Big Jelly recording studio. There, it expanded its workshops, giving young people the chance to learn how to use recording technology, play instruments, write and record their own music and more.

In 2013, Kent County Council outsourced its youth service provision across the county, with Pie signing a contract to provide services in Ramsgate. It was at this point that the charity moved into Ramsgate Youth Centre and expanded its offering. 

Music remains a core focus, with a recording studio set up in the building from the beginning, but Pie also then began offering “provision that looked more like your traditional youth clubs”, says Zoë, who took on the role of CEO in 2023, just before the cuts to those youth services were announced.

The centre offers a place for young people to come and socialise. There are also cookery workshops, and a bicycle maintenance programme where young people learn how to fix up and repair donated bikes. A pastoral programme to improve young people’s mental wellbeing operates alongside all this, with a free counselling service, creative interventions, and one-to-one sessions with youth workers. 

“Our whole ethos is that we're here for all young people and spaces like this shouldn't be a privilege for those who are most in need, we should be here for everyone,” says Zoë. “What has been really degraded over the last 15 years in terms of the youth work sector is those spaces that are open for anyone.”

According to Unison, between 2010 and 2023 almost 1250 youth centres were shut down by councils in England and Wales - more than two-thirds of all centres. Over 40% of councils were found to offer no youth centre provision at all. 

Meanwhile, a study by the National Youth Agency found that youth services in England and Wales have faced a 73% real-terms funding cut from local authorities since 2010. Among the fallout from this is the loss of around 4,500 frontline youth workers and more than 40,000 adult volunteers. 

Pie offers three open access sessions per week - two for young people aged 11 to 19, and one for ages eight to 12. Each session draws between 35 and 40 attendees. 

“There'll be whole social groups who revolve their weekly plans about coming to Pie,” says Zoé.

The funding cut by KCC last year meant that the charity had to “immediately start fundraising at an epic level” to cover the sudden £240,000 shortfall in money needed to keep the service running. Although forced to end services it provided in Dover, Pie has been able to secure the funds required to continue in Ramsgate. 

However, other local services have simply disappeared. This includes The Quarterdeck in Cliftonville, another purpose built youth centre, which saw up to 60 people attend each of its open sessions. When the cuts came into effect last April, that provision and engagement simply disappeared when the facility became a Family Hub, says Zoë.

“We really saw Quarterdeck as our sister“, she says. “It was perfectly placed in terms of supporting young people in the most need [in Cliftonville] and it's such a shame that that is no longer a youth centre. There's been a cliff edge drop off of provision for young people.”

It’s not the case that those young people would seek services from Pie instead. 

“There has always been a Margate/Ramsgate divide with people and lots of young people won't leave their locality,” she explains. “A lot of the young people who were attending to provision at Quarterdeck are living in poverty and experiencing very difficult life circumstances.”

She adds that since the Quarterdeck closed, she and her team are increasingly “hearing reports of increased anti-social behavior, increasing youth violence, and that services supporting young people experiencing domestic abuse in the home are seeing an increase in demand.”

“All this stuff was plainly obvious to us when KCC said that they wanted to make the cuts,” she continues. “Without sounding really bleak, it will get worse until KCC actually confronts the issue.”

As soon as the intention to sell was announced, the Pie team made clear their desire to acquire and improve the building, setting about raising half a million pounds to do so. 

“From the beginning, my worry wasn't about the fundraising,” insists Zoë. “It was always about whether KCC would actually sell it to us or not. That's much more difficult than raising the funds.”

Ramsgate Youth Centre is officially designated an “asset of community value”, meaning that there are additional processes the council must go through before putting it up for sale to private buyers. This includes a six month moratorium where bids can be submitted by community organisations. That deadline expired earlier this month with no response to Pie’s bid.

“At the moment, we're in a position where we really just have to sit and wait to see what the council do and then if the building sells or not.”

A spokesperson for Kent County Council told Strange Tourist that Ramsgate Youth Centre is being put up for sale because the council “has no operational need for the building”. It plans to put the building up for sale via auction, with that process “anticipated to be in May”, and “any proceeds from its sale will be reinvested into KCC services.”

The spokesperson added that while KCC “did not invite bids during the six month moratorium which was required under the ACV legislation”, Pie did “put forward a proposal during this period but it was not taken forward at that time." 

Instead, they said, “the auction process will allow Pie Factory Music and others that may be interested in the property to come forward in an even-handed and transparent way.”

Most of the funding for a potential purchase by Pie will be raised through grants. However, a public crowdfunder was launched to raise a small portion of the amount required, largely as a means of getting the story out more widely. Now more than £12,000 of the £15,000 target has been raised by donations from local people.

“I've been somewhat overwhelmed by the level of community support and generosity,” she says. “What it shows is that our community sees this as something of real value and they are prepared to put their own money towards try to save it and that is huge. Especially because our community in Ramsgate are often very, very poor. 

“So while I felt really strongly at the beginning that it's not the job of our community to save this building - it's mine and our team’s and KCC's if they choose to - people have given and that's been incredibly heartwarming and moving.”

Partly that support is because the successes of Pie are plain to see and have been seen over and over again for more than two decades.

Many of the young people who have started out making music at Pie have also gone on to have success outside the charity’s recording studio. Just recently, artists such as Evan Williams and Harmony Bo have begun to make names for themselves in the wider music industry. 

“What young people achieve here and just generally in life is often undervalued and underestimated,” says Zoë. “What we try to do here is to show people that young people are worth it and they are amazing and they contribute so much. That they can go off and do so much if they're given the right tools or opportunities. But they can't just be left and that's kind of what is happening now by the local authority.”

“I think it really speaks volumes about how young people are seen and valued by decision makers. If this place is sold, what does it tell young people in this area about what they're worth? The message it sends is, ‘you don't deserve this’.

“I think that's absolutely devastating,” she concludes. “And I think young people deserve better.”

Find out more about Pie Factory Music and contribute to the crowdfunder at piefactorymusic.com