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Anger: Karen Buck |
WEST END | NEWS | MP's FEARS OVER KIDS' SERVICES | KAREN BUCK
Pre-school closure decision sparks row over ‘Cinderella’ services
MP Karen Buck has thrown down the gauntlet to the council, criticising their decision to close a Lisson Grove children’s service – the third in a month – and accusing them of “running roughshod” over parents.
She said the fate of the Independent Mothers Pre-school in Broadley Street was sealed barely before the ink dried on the closure notices of the Maida Vale Play Project in Paddington Recreation Ground and the Sure Start Centre in Queen’s Park.
The Broadley Street closure will affect 26 two to five-year-olds using the service.
Ms Buck, MP for Regent’s Park and Kensington North, said the actions were unprecedented and signalled a “crisis” for parents in the borough, fearing they were only the tip of the iceberg.
She said: “I don’t know what they’re thinking in the council but it’s an extremely worrying trend and it’s no coincidence that they’ve all come at once. Even before the Maida Vale play group and the Sure Start in Dart Street there had been massive rent hikes to nurseries. What message are they sending out to parents? They seem to be going around imposing decisions and treating children’s services as Cinderella services. As long as money gets spent on street cleaning and road maintenance children don’t seem to matter. It’s an absolute scandal.”
But children’s services cabinet member Cllr Sarah Richardson has hit back. She said: “I want to put an end to any ill-founded or groundless rumours, which wrongly claim that the council is closing services for children. This creates unnecessary alarm and distress to parents. It is extremely irresponsible for people, for whatever reason, to deliberately suggest services are being closed when they are not.
“The council would like to reassure parents and the community that no services will be lost either through the Dart Street or Independent Mothers’ Pre-school moves. The decision to relocate services from Dart Street to Bravington Road allows parents to access more services in better facilities. Westminster City Council is fully committed to finding a temporary home for the pre-school and a shortlist of sites has been drawn-up. I apologise to parents who feel they have not been kept informed of very important decisions that directly affect them, and we are putting in measures to ensure this doesn’t happen again so there’s no repeat of such inaccurate speculation taking root.”
She added: “Labour are now desperate and fighting to survive, as the Crewe and Nantwich by-election shows. Karen Buck is demonstrating that she will now say or do anything to save her own political skin.”
Parents of the Maida Vale Play Project – used by 40 five to 12-year-olds after school and during holidays, have protested outside City Hall. It was announced last week that the Sure Start information centre in Queen’s Park will close at the beginning of June. The advice services, used by 30 parents every day, will move nearby to merge with another service which parents say is unworkable.
This week it emerged the Broadley Street pre-school will close in September.
Queen’s Park parent Liana Loporto uses the Dart Street centre. She said: “I don’t know what I’m going to without it. It does seem like they make their minds up without talking to parents. Priorities need to change before more services are lost.” |
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