The prefabricated buildings on the edge of the car park in the grounds of the Robert Manning Technology College in Queen's Road were almost 60 years old and had been in a parlous state for some time but with the construction of a new £400,000 youth centre nearby, their usefulness was finally over and demolition contractors moved in on Monday 13th September to pull them down. By Friday, the site had been cleared.

The huts were built in 1946 as temporary classrooms and were known as a HORSA building, Huts Occasioned by the Raising of the School Leaving Age, to counteract overcrowding at the old Bourne Primary School. The school became Bourne County Secondary in 1958, and generations of children, now parents and grandparents, were educated there. They continued to provide valuable teaching space when the school was renamed the Robert Manning School in 1987 but were phased out when a new teaching block was opened in March 1989. Ten years later the school was given technical college status and is now known as the Robert Manning Technology College.

The Hereward Youth Club, which had been meeting at the Vestry Hall in North Street since its inception in 1962, needed to find alternative premises and was offered the old huts which became its permanent home, eventually changing its name to the Bourne Youth Centre. But it was recognised by the Education and Cultural Services Directorate at Lincolnshire County Council, the department responsible for youth activities in the county, that the huts were in a poor condition and needed replacing and the new youth centre was agreed the previous year.

Work on the building was almost complete and young people were already in occupation and so the final act in the project was to demolish the old huts, a sad end to a familiar sight but one that was necessary in the cause of progress.

The job complete and the new youth centre is revealed.