The final decision has now been made on the future of the Children’s Centres in our local area.

Previously it has been proposed to close the ‘Toodle Hill’ Children’s Centre on Cuckoo Lane, and the Butterstile Children’s Centre on School Grove). In an unusual ‘u-turn’ in policy, the Council has now changed its mind, and decided to keep open Butterstile in a reduced form, however Toodle Hill WILL close.

What this means for the Prestwich area is that we will have one full Children’s Centre, on Kings Road (at Sedgley Park Primary School). Butterstile will be a ‘spoke’ from Kings Road and a venue for some services. (Though there is no commitment to keep it after March 2016.)

At present most of what Children’s Centres do are available to all parents, however in the future most services will be more targeted at people in more need (e.g. people on low incomes), though we are assured that there will be some services that everyone can access.

I know a lot of parents and other campaigners worked very hard to campaign to get the Children’s Centres saved and have had a great partial victory with Butterstile (and one other centre in Radcliffe) staying open in some form, and some services being available to all.

Many people local people also signed a petition against the closure – as this was more than 2,500 people this meant that the petitioners were able to present their case at the full meeting of Bury Council last Wednesday. However a change in rules made since the petition started meant that no debate was held, just a response from the Council leadership and a vote.

Our Councillor (Tim Pickstone) voted to keep the Children’s Centre open, along with independent and conservative councillors, however they were outvoted by Labour councillors who voted to close our Children’s Centre.