OnSide North West, a charity dedicated to giving young people safe and affordable places to go in their leisure time, has appointed Jeremy Glover MBE as its new chief executive.

Glover will take up the role on 1 February after 31 years as chief executive for the Bolton Lads and Girls Club which he founded.

Regarding the appointment, Glover said: “Too many of our young people – particularly those living in inner cities and on our poorest estates – start to get into trouble because there is nowhere decent for them to go.”

OnSide, which was established by businessman Bill Holroyd, received a £300,000 grant from the North West Regional Development Agency as well as £300,000 from the private sector.

It has also received £25m of the government’s myplace funding and aims to provide every town and city in the UK with a ‘youth zone’.

Holroyd said there was "no better authority" than Glover on the provision of youth zone facilities and added: "We are incredibly lucky to have him ‘OnSide’.”

During Glover’s time at the Bolton Lads and Girls Club he was awarded a Paul Harris Fellowship, an MBE in 1999 and became an honorary fellow of Bolton University in 2003.