The London Jewish Cultural Centre has unveiled detailed plans for a £750,000 youth centre on its Ivy House, Golders Green, site which the LJCC believes will attract teenagers from across the capital.

LJCC general manager Alan Fell said this week: “We are suffering from a shortage of facilities for young Jewish people and there has been no new Jewish youth facility in the borough for a very long time.”

Following a successful planning appeal, building work will start in the autumn and should be completed early in 2010.

Mr Fell said the centre would offer “a mixture of educational, recreational and leisure activities. There will also be performing arts including film-making and drama workshops and, potentially, interfaith work”. It would be promoted through sites such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace.

The Sobell Foundation is funding a full-time youth worker responsible for developing programming. Habonim Dror members are expected to be the first regular users of the new facility.

In a difficult market for mainstream youth activities, Mr Fell felt the LJCC model would succeed because of the centre’s wealth of resources. “We have film-making activities, cultural programmes and a proven track record of delivering. Other organisations tended to have focused on sport whereas we will have a broader appeal.”