“He’s mad, very mad – or perhaps visionary” said Cllr Jeremy Heron, Chairman of Ringwood Town Council’s Policy Committee.

“First he persuaded us to let the public speak at all of our meetings – heresy to some – and now he has got us to agree to appoint two young students as Youth Advisors to every one of our Committees to tell us what the young people really want! But whether mad or visionary I think we have made a good decision.

"The students will effectively be young officers and like other officers, they advise us and we will consider that advice before decisions are made.” “Visionary” mused Cllr Mrs Ford, the other Town Councillor appointed to oversee implementation of the scheme.

“Most Councillors are now of an age where our children have grown up and left home. We don’t therefore have the same everyday contact with young people as we do with the older generation.

We recognise that and are simply doing something about it. Our former Mayor Cllr Danny Cracknell has long urged us to listen to young people and hopefully this is a step in that direction.

The students will represent all young people resident in the area and not just those who attend Ringwood School.” Margaret Olive, Assistant Head of Ringwood School has welcomed the initiative.

“Over the past couple of years the Town Council has been asking students to attend various meetings such as their Fairtrade Working Party, the Festival Committee and also their Town Plan Focus Groups.

Clearly Councillors feel that young people have something to contribute and the School is delighted that it will be appointing, not just nominating, two young people to each of the Town Council’s programme Committees.

The eight students will be appointed from September through to next July and will receive all of the same papers as Councillors and will speak at Committees in exactly the same way as the Town Council’s own Officers.

The scheme fits in with the new broad based teaching curriculum adopted at the School and we are very proud to be involved in this partnership initiative.

We think we are probably one of the first, if not the first School, that has been given such a major role in Town Council business, which surely shows that the Town Council believe that young people have a valuable contribution to make to the wellbeing of the town”.