Below you’ll find a breakdown of the results from our previous Mark Your Mark votes. You can also read about what we achieved as part of the Make Your Mark result from 2025 – Places to Go, Things to Do.

2025 – Places to Go, Things to Do

More than 30 schools and youth groups hosted ballots, with 7,160 young people across Devon casting a vote.

The three top voted issues were:

1. Places to go and things to do – 1,449 votes (20%)
2. Mental health support – 1,173 (16%)
3. Public transport – 957 (13%)

The full breakdown of results can be found here.

What did we do in response to this?

After months of peer research to find out why this issue was important to you, we presented our findings to professionals and County Councillors at our Youth Voice Saturday event. During this event, we set up specific focus groups to work on the main areas that needed attention.

Some of the things we acheived were:

• Creating the Places to Go, Things to Do Grant Fund to give out £160,000 to over 130 different youth organisations across the county.
• Meeting with Stagecoach and other decision makers to discuss the cost and accessibility of public transport.
• Working with outdoor education and leisure providers to improve accessibility and inclusion.
• Starting work on a Devon Youth Directory, a central space to discover what’s on in your local area. This is still a work in progress, and we’re currently preparing for a big launch in 2027!
• Finally, supporting new and existing Youth Town Councils to strengthen local youth voice.

2024 – Mental Health

In 2024, Make Your Mark was run on a national level by the British Youth Council, you can see the details of the national results in the link below.

Alongside this national ballot, we also asked young people to vote on what they thought the top issue was in Devon specifically, and since the British Youth Council’s closure in 2024 (after the vote), we decided to keep running Make Your Mark independently in Devon.

Over 30 schools and youth groups signed up and took part, with 2,780 young people voting in Make Your Mark and the Devon ballot.

The three top voted issues (in Devon) were:

1. Mental Health
2. Vaping
3. Activities and Opportunities

The full breakdown of results, both Devon-specific and national, can be found here.