NEW centres for children across Kirklees have been approved.

The council’s Conservative-led Cabinet voted for the £6.525m plan at a meeting in Dewsbury Town Hall yesterday.

The new centres will provide mums and dads with health, education and social services under one roof.

Councillors hope the new centres, which are due to be ready by March, will serve more than 12,000 children under five.

Thornton Lodge Nursery will be one of the places to benefit from the new money, with a £373,000 extension.

Slaithwaite Town Hall will host 904 children after a £106,000 refit.

A newly-built centre at Beech Junior, Infants and Nursery School in Golcar will serve more than 1,000 children from Golcar, Milnsbridge and Cowersley.

Pentland Infant and Nursery and Shaw Cross Infant and Nursery in Dewsbury will both receive newly-built centres.

Fieldhead JIN in Batley will be refurbished at a cost of £412,000.

Meltham Moor Primary and Denby Dale Nursery are also in line for refits.

Some 512 children will be served by a new centre at Gomersal St Mary’s School.

The Cabinet will decide later on proposed centres for Thornhill Lees, Rawthorpe, Heckmondwike, Cleckheaton and Greenside Infants School in Almondbury.

The new spending is the second phase of children’s centres in Kirklees.

Councillors believe the new centres will help families hit by the planned and controversial closure of three Huddersfield nurseries.

Cabinet member Clr Jim Dodds said: “The first phase has been brilliant and I hope that success continues.”

The new centres will be open 10 hours a day, five days a week.

They will typically include a reception area, consultation room, buggy store, interview room, kitchenette and training room.