Part of Ashton-under-Lyne was declared a regeneration area in 1996. It had been identified as an area which required special investment and initiatives in order to overcome extremely high levels of deprivation. This was confirmed by the national Indices of Deprivation 2000, which ranked the
St Peter’s ward of Ashton (which largely corresponds to the regeneration area) in the top 5% of the most deprived areas in the whole of England. For the past 10 years, there has been substantial investment in the physical, social and economic regeneration of the area.

One of the aims of the regeneration programme was to reduce the gap between the life chances of children growing up in the regeneration area and those growing up in other parts of Tameside. Research undertaken by the Halsall Consultancy into young people from the regeneration area showed that there was a high level of anti-social behaviour, poor community cohesion, low educational attainment, and low self-esteem.
St Peter’s Youth (SPY) was set up in 2002 to run a range of projects and activities that focused on addressing the issues raised in the report.
SPY began as two workers based at Ashton Regeneration, but has expanded to become a team of nearly 30, most of whom are local young people.