IT was in February 1981 that a chain of events started which led to one of the most remarkable meetings in Darlington's history.

The Evening Despatch, the Northern Echo's sister paper, had reported that bored teenagers were flocking to illegal back-street video game dens in the town centre. The alternative, they argued, was drugs, glue-sniffing and crime.

As the debate over their actions intensified and brought them into conflict with planning regulations because the dens were unauthorised, the young people created their own association to press for more provision for teenagers.

Later in the year, be-suited officers and councillors sat down at the town hall with the young people, skinheads and Mods among them, and debated the issue.

What emerged was a better understanding of each other's situation but the phrases the teenagers used then - 'Darlington is such a boring town' 'all the decisions are made in council rooms by people who know nothing about what happens on the street' - are still heard from some young people today.

Twenty-three years later, Councillor David Lyonette, who sat through some of those meetings, believes Darlington's authorities and volunteers have made great efforts to provide gathering places for young people.

Coun Lyonette is patron of the Darlington Youth Development Trust, an organisation which helped create youth clubs and similar places to go for young people.

Among the success stories he points to are The Zone, at Harrowgate Hill, the Haughton youth club, and the borough's Youth Forum, which gives children the chance to express their views to decision-makers.

He said: "What we have seen over the last 10-20 years has been young people increasingly doing things for themselves but there was a need for the council to be represented on the street corner and I think that has been happening.

"What annoys people is the sheer size of some of these groups of young people, which can be intimidating. In Haughton and Springfield, for instance, they can number up to 100. But when they gather they are not doing anything wrong, just talking.

"There is plenty more which can be done for them."