HAVE your say on a financially-restrained council’s potential plans to close off seven children’s centres.

Slough Borough Council is eyeing to slash 10 of the centres to three in a bid to save £431,000 as part of a major savings programme to reduce its £760m borrowing debt.

The three centres proposed to stay open are Romsey Close, Chalvey Grove, and Penn Road. A standalone early education provision in Yew Tree Road is also proposed to remain operational.

However, those three centres could be transformed into a family hub model, which aim to bring vital services all in one place with a focus on early help provision and targeted support for vulnerable families, children, and young people.

Residents will be able to have a say on the proposal via a six-week consultation, which runs until March 17.

READ MORE: Slough Borough Council could close seven children's centres

Cabinet will analyse the results and will make a final decision later this year.

While closing seven centres and opting for a family hub model is the recommended approach, the council is also considering two other options.

This includes closing eight centres and keep the centres at Penn Road and Chalvey Road open but transform them into family hubs. The Stand-alone early education and childcare would also be maintained at Yew Tree Road.

The last option includes closing nine out of ten centres and establishing a borough-wide centre at Chalvey Grove.

Cllr Christine Hulme (Lab: Central), lead member for children’s services, said: “Recent events in Slough involving older children demonstrates our resources need to support all our children and our intention is to develop our children’s centres into a family hub model, which has been successfully implemented in other local authority areas over the past few years.

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“When children’s centres were originally established, they were exclusively targeted at providing support for children in their early years.

“Going forward we intend to develop a model that provides services for children from 0 to 19 (25 with SEND), whilst retaining an Early Years’ service on some of our sites.

“Having fewer of the old-style children’s centres would mean we can develop comprehensive family hubs at those that remain, providing a much wider range of services to more children and young people and their families.”

The consultation can be viewed here: https://slough.citizenspace.com/corporate/childrens-centres-consultation

Drop-in sessions are also be held at Penn Road Children’s centre on February 9 – 10-11:30am.

Others will be held at Vicarage Way children’s centre (12pm-2pm) on March 6, and Yew Tree Road children’s centre (4pm-6pm) on March 15.