Actor Jerome Flynn, pictured middle back, with those involved in Kandu last yearGAZETTE: Ambitious plans to take troubled teenagers on a life-changing trip to New Zealand may yet be resurrected, despite two disappointing set-backs.

Kandu Arts for Sustainable Development, the Chippenham-based educational charity, wants to take 12 young people, including seven looked-after children, on a trip to include swimming with dolphins, whale watching, and learning about Maori culture.

Plans were held up at Easter and again this month because the charity has not been given the green light by Wiltshire County Council to take the looked-after youngsters.

But there is still hope for the £30,000 trip Kandu's Ed Deedigan is determined to proceed and the county council wants to have another meeting to thrash out the details.

Liz Garrett, head of strategy and development for the Department of Children and Education at Wiltshire County Council, said: "Because we recognise this could be a beneficial opportunity for a small number of young people we have been meeting with Kandu Arts on a regular basis to look at how we may be able to help take this proposal forward.

"This help has included looking at how health and safety issues relating to the proposed trip may be addressed and whether it would be appropriate to have an officer to accompany any young people who were to take part.

"We have also told Kandu Arts that we would be willing to make a contribution to the trip that would be the same as that paid for a holiday in the UK if a decision is made for children in our care to take part in this trip.

"Our intention is that we will be holding a further meeting, at a date yet to be confirmed, with Kandu Arts before Christmas to look at these issues further."

Actor Jerome Flynn, one of the patrons of Kandu, was planning to join the trip and he helped with fundraising by putting on a version of his West End stage show, Jus' Like That!, a tribute to legendary comedian Tommy Cooper, at the Neeld Hall in Chippenham in December.

The youngsters would experience ancient Maori traditions first hand when they visited the Ngati-Toa tribe and stayed with them in their settlement in Hongoeka Bay, Wellington.

But the charity was forced to postpone the April trip and give up its provisional flight reservations because the necessary approval from the county council had not come through.

So far £7,000 towards the £30,000 total has been raised but Mr Deedigan was confident the money could be found.

He asked the county council to contribute the amount they would pay for a week's residential holiday for each looked-after person who was going on the trip, and he invited an officer from Social Services to join them on the trip.

"This is a real chance for Social Services to develop a more empathetic relationship with these young people," Mr Deedigan said.

"The trip will help these youngsters take control of their lives and make positive decisions about their future."

The party would include 10 adults, and the trip would take two weeks.

Kandu organised a similarly adventurous trip to the United States in 2000, when it took 18 youngsters, many of them looked-after children, to experience contemporary American Indian culture at first hand.

If Kandu and Social Services cannot reach an agreement about the trip Mr Deedigan proposed taking youngsters who had left local authority care on the trip and said he was determined one way or another the ground-breaking project would take off.