MOUNTSORREL POST YOUR FREE COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
MARCH 2018
No. 62
www.birstallpost.co.uk
Fighting to save children’s centres CAMPAIGNERS ARE fighting to keep Mountsorrel’s Children’s Centre open. The centre, located within Mountsorrel primary school, is one of 24 Children’s Centres that are threatened with closure because of County Council cuts. Formerly known as Sure Start centres, Children’s Centres provide support and services to young children aged from 0 to 5 and their families. Support is focused on closing the achievement gap for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Leicestershire County Council says it needs to save £3.8 million from its £12.4 million Early Help services budget, which goes towards supporting children aged 0 to 19. It plans to merge four separate services into one to make the necessary savings, necessary because of reduced funding the council receives from the government. Save Our Children’s Centres (SOCC) is a campaign group trying to keep the centres open. A spokesperson said: “Although there might be cash savings in the short term, removing local resources for families already stretched and stressed will cause problems and extra costs in the future.” There are currently 36 children’s centres and the county council wants to deliver its new merged service from 15 Family Well Being Hubs. The nearest to
Parish raises precept MOUNTSORREL PARISH Council will increase the parish precept by 163% for 2018/19. This will mean that the annual sum paid to fund the parish council by a Band D property owner will increase from £75.99 to £199.85. The total precept for 2018/19 will be £543,970. In 2017/18 it was £207,276. The parish council say the increase is necessary because they are taking over services that were previously the responsibility of other local authorities, and they need to restore their reserves. A parish council spokesperson said: “The onset of the Localism Act and the impact of the austerity measures on both the County and District Councils are Continued on page 2
Pic: campaigners from SOCC outside Mountsorrel Children’s Centre
Mountsorrel will be in Thurmaston and Loughborough. The SOCC spokesperson said: “Vulnerable families and children in need will be forced to make extended and in some cases prohibitively expensive journeys to the remaining centres. In addition they may feel stigmatised by going to a building that also houses youth offending. It will undoubtedly be children of the most vulnerable families who will be the ones least likely to attend the new centres. “In addition to the council’s own services many other agencies operate almost
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exclusively out of Children Centres, for example health visiting services, breastfeeding support, child health events and many volunteer led groups such as breastfeeding groups, parent carer wellbeing, multiple birth support groups, childminder groups, singing and music groups. “The centres are also well used by the councils own GO LEARN service providing valuable education programmes for parents in need. This will shift a sizeable financial burden onto the NHS, while other services will often not be able to Continued on page 2
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