A STANFORD-LE-HOPE resident who started a petition against the closure of her local children’s centre has said she has had feedback as to why the centre is now going to remain open.
Sally Felton started a petition on www.change.org. Sally’s petition gained 387 signatures.
There were also demonstrations in Stanford and at Thurrock Council.
On Tuesday, Thurrock Council indicated that the centre would remain open.
Ms Felton said:
“Although I still haven’t received an official response in writing from Thurrock Council regarding the petition, I have been sent the following email from a member of the Children’s Commissioning team telling me that the Stanford-le-Hope Children’s Centre will remain open. Well done everybody!
The e mail states: “Please note that we maintain our position not to include the comments within the change.org petition in the decision making process due to the late submission. Any submissions received after the closing date of a public consultation cannot influence the final decision around the proposed changes. However, once a decision has been taken I can confirm that as part of their ongoing planning the service design team continuously seeks feedback from users and we will pass your comments on to them for use when appropriate. I am also pleased to inform you of some developments that you may find favourable.
The Stanford le Hope Children’s Centre will remain in use, but as regular users will already know, it is a large building which is under utilised during the course of a week due to the number of users, the number of staff and the needs of the population. Empty rooms do not provide good value for residents’ money.
Thurrock Council has recently decided that timetabled sessions will continue to be delivered at Stanford le Hope Children’s Centre. The intention is that a health visitor and midwife will also be based at the centre. The resources within the centre will remain accessible for families on a timetabled basis.
“The only aspect of the service that will be removed is the receptionist services, but families will be able to contact Children’s Centre staff via the telephone. This is a wider offer than that proposed at the time the petition was launched and we hope that it might be more acceptable than the original proposal”.
