The success of six Sound Cafes set up to offer youngsters a safe place to meet and enjoy live music has led to calls for more facilities for young people in Didcot.

More than 60 youngsters packed the Fleet Meadow Community Hall in Sandringham Drive for the last Sound Cafe event.

Every Thursday for the past six weeks, the hall has been transformed into an evening venue, offering live music, food and a place for young people to socialise.

The Sound Cafes have featured live bands, film snippets on a big screen, computer games and music.

The initiative to offer young people between 13 and 18 a safe place to meet and discuss different issues in an informal environment was kick-started by a national Christian youth organisation, called Viz-a-Viz.

The organisation visited Didcot Girls' School and St Birinus School in March to talk about the moral and spiritual side of religion.

It helped members of youth groups at Didcot Baptist Church, in Wantage Road, and St. Matthew's Anglican Church, in Harwell, stage six free evening events for young people.

Sarah Dunnett, 16, from Long Wittenham, who is a student at Didcot Girls' School, said: "Young people are generally quite bored by the church because the idea of its culture does not mix with youth culture, so we are trying to bring the two things together."

Jane Ledingham, the youth deacon at Didcot Baptist Church, said that more than 40 youngsters who had turned up to the event every week were not church-goers but had no where else to go.

She said: "People have come back week after week and asked us to keep the Sound Cafe going."

Christy Lewington, 16, who goes to Didcot Girls' School, said: "I think the Sound Cafe is a brilliant idea because it is somewhere to socialise and relax with your friends and the entertainment has been great. There is not much for young people to do in the town.

"I don't go to church, but the events have been good because they help you understand what people believe.

"Some people think they are going to push religion on you, but it has not been like that at all."

Pete Lambourne, father of 14-year-old Emma who attends the cafes, said: "It does seem a shame that there is not something like this every week.

"The only choice people have locally is to go to a pub, which automatically excludes anyone under the age of 18, so they hang around on street corners and get bored."