Medway Council has decided to stop running the Duke of Edinburgh (DofE) Award in the face of objections from the young people involved in the scheme.

Councillors agreed to axe its small team as part of cost-cutting across youth services and have handed over control to the regional DofE office.

However, there are fears that the move could deprive young people of participating in the scheme if schools do not sign up. At the moment the council runs it for them.

A petition opposing the council’s plans gathered 1,000 signatures but was rejected at a cabinet meeting with councillors insisting the awards would not be affected.

Any school operating the scheme will now have to become a licence holder, which the South East regional office will partially pay for the next two years at a cost of £93,730.

Opponents have concerns that schools, in particular those with only a small number of participants, will not take up the licence due to the cost and the extra workload.

"Medway has a proud history of delivering the DofE programme" - Cllr Mackness

The council team organises training, expeditions and support for schools and youth centres across Medway, from Rochester Grammar to Abbey Court Special School. The staff will now be made redundant.

A regional DofE team will rent offices at the Strand in Gillingham for free from the council for two years to create a “centre of excellence” for the scheme.

Cllr Andrew Mackness, portfolio holder for children’s services, said: “Medway has a proud history of delivering the DofE programme. I would want a DofE centre of excellence in Medway, this means we would be at the centre of DofE in the region.”

Cllr David Brake, portfolio holder for adult services, said the move was a way of securing Medway’s DofE success story as it had grown to be one of the largest providers of the scheme, second only to Manchester.

In 2015/2016, 1,074 young people took part in the award in Medway and there are already 644 enrolled for 2016/2017.

Cllr Brake said there were many benefits from the proposal and that he hoped young people would come to see the decision was the right one.

Speaking after this week’s cabinet meeting, co-chair Lucy Maycock, 16, said: “I feel that what we’ve said and come and stood here for has been brushed over, and it has been a lot to do with what the South East want and less what the young people who are going to be doing their award, what their views are.

“We’ve been left unclear as volunteers and the young people who represent the Medway DofE panel. A lot has been said obviously on behalf of the South East but we don’t know what the future is for us. Also addressing the licencing fee for schools, I know some are more well-off than others but it’s especially going to impact the smaller schools that only admit one or two groups.

“After April they’re going to have to start paying fees and after 2018, what’s going to be happening then? I think there’s still a lot of questions that have been left unanswered.”

Lucy will be starting her gold award with the council team in January, but does not know what the move to the South East will mean for her expeditions which are planned to take place in the summer.

Medway Labour Group has called for a wider discussion about potential options for the scheme, calling the options tabled by the cabinet for the future of the service “very narrow”.