CHANTS of “Save Our Sure Start” echoed around St George’s Square.
In a bid to stop Kirklees Council from cutting services to the area’s community children’s centres, mums, dads, Unison members and several councillors took part in a demonstration through the town centre on Saturday.
But after 15 minutes of the demonstration, Kirklees Councillor Peter O’Neill addressed parents and reassured families that no changes would be made to the centres.
And he claimed the council plans to develop Sure Start centres to provide further assistance to parents and children.
He said: “We support the local people.
“We are on their side. They value the Sure Start centres and we know this – that is why we are keeping them.
“Plans to change the centres comes from central government to local authorities.
“But we know how important they are locally and this protest marks that.
“We want to retain the services in full to avoid any costly social work involvement with families later on.
“The council aims to work with people to provide an even better service.
“The only differences to the services will be administrative.
“We will be moving the service ages of 0 to five, which they are currently working for, to pre-birth to 19 so that they are accessible for more families and can provide an even greater assistance.
“We will also not be changing the set-up to lead services and assistance services.
“We value the Sure Start centres and support all these parents that are here today.”
Council Leader Mehboob Khan, Dalton Clr Rochelle Parchment and Batley West’s Clr O’Neill joined the march.
Amy Wright, 30, said that the Sure Start centre in Almondbury gave her confidence and helped her when she found out her daughter Nikita was suffering from slow speech development.
She said: “I came to the march because I didn’t agree with the proposed cuts.
“We have to keep them open, they have provided so much help to mums like me.
“Without Sure Start I wouldn’t have got the help that I needed, they helped with her at school and helped me build my confidence.
“I think the service is amazing and we need to make the public aware of what could happen if it disappears.”
Mick Calvert, of Holmfirth, joined the march but was not only protesting about the closure of Sure Start centre.
Campaigning on behalf of the anti-capitalist newspaper Socialist Worker he said: “I am protesting against the centres but generally against all the proposed cuts by the Government.
“The centres provide disadvantaged children with opportunity – unlike the current people working in the Government who were born with opportunities available to them.
“We don’t want our children to have their future taken away from them.
“I am also campaigning against the workforce programme which I believe to be slave labour for young people.”
Marjorie Magano, who works at a Sure Start centre, she said: “I am a family support worker and we want to see the services remain fully open.
“We believe we provide a valuable service and help hundreds of families.
“What we do is important and it meets the needs of our community.”
For more information about the Save Our Sure Start Children’s Centre campaign visit: www.facebook.com/saveoursurestart
