Children's centres

We'll be talking about Central Beds plans to cuts back Sure Start children's services in the village - after shelving plans for a permanent centre last winter. As usual options take the form of

'Do you want to be
A Hung?
B Drawn?
C Quartered?'

The option 'None of the above is not available.'

My draft proposals to the Parish Council for our response are as follows:

A new consultation on the location of Sure Start Children’s Centres in Central Beds means the end of at least some or possibly all services in the village.

Sure Start offers children a better start in life through early education, health and family support. It has been running for the last decade. 

There are sessions at Cranfield Lower School, the Methodist Church and the Scout Hut five days a week. These include baby and crawler, baby clinic, story and rhyme, creative play, toy library, new parents and Cranberry stay and play.

Proposals for a permanent centre at the lower school were pulled by Central Beds last December, after staff and governors had spent 18 months in preparation.

CBC says that Government guidance issued to Councils last year stated that while children’s centres were a universal service there should be a targeted approach to vulnerable children and families.

‘There is a need for a more focused approach to early intervention in Central Bedfordshire which targets areas of greatest need.’

In consequence it proposes three options

1. Services ‘clustered’ rounds Dunstable, Leighton Buzzard, Flitwick, Sandy, Biggleswade,  Shefford and Stotfold & Arlesey.

Outcome: Reduced services to Cranfield

2. Close eight centres including Cranfield in areas of ‘less need’ and transfer these resources to the remaining 14 centres.

Outcome: No services in Cranfield

3.  Close 13 centres in areas of less need and transfer these resources to Dunstable, Houghton Regis, Leighton Buzzard, Sandy and Flitwick.

Outcome: No services in Cranfield

Cranfield is being downgraded on some crude average of income and lifestyle but it is a large village with a growing population and should not be told it is losing out to other communities. We were told last December that money for the new centre was being transferred to Leighton Buzzard and Dunstable and I don’t see why we should lose even more.

I propose that we endorse none of the above options but write, stating that the consultation is flawed, lacking an option which would have preserved these services and calling for CBC to reconsider any plans to scale down services to Cranfield.