CHILDREN'S CENTRES PLAN

The Children's Centres plan is to have nine children's centres in the city's most socially-disadvantaged areas and use £2.5m of Government funding to build new facilities where necessary. The centres will be:

ALLENTON/OSMASTON
Will offer a total of 57 full day-care places by March 2006. These places will be provided by the SureStart First Steps project, in partnership with Osmaston Family Project, in Varley Street, and Lord Street Nursery School.

ROSEHILL
Based in Stonehill Nursery School, Dale Primary School, and St Chad's Infant School.

MACKWORTH
Ashgate Nursery School will form the central element, together with the Step-In Family Centre and the Ryedale Centre, in Mackworth.

WEST END
This will centre on Central Nursery School, in Nun's Street, and work with the nearby health clinic.

AUSTIN/SUNNYHILL
The former Village School site in Normanton will have a 51-place day nursery. A new children's centre is proposed at Homelands House.

DERWENT
Stepping Stones voluntary sector day nursery, in St Mark's Road, will be the pivotal point for the centre and a new healthy living centre built nearby.

ABBEY STREET
Becket Primary School has been negotiating with charity Children First to develop facilities at the school and two other local primaries.

Together they would develop a day nursery for 33 children under three years and provide full day care for 16 children aged three to four years.

ASTERDALE
This would develop around Asterdale Primary School and offer daycare for 33 under-threes, family support, plus training and learning. Building work at Asterdale would cost about £500,000.

Other primary schools would be involved and a new nursery unit is anticipated at Borrow Wood Infant School, in Arundel Drive.

SINFIN
This will use a range of buildings and providers. Services will be developed at Grampian Primary School and extend to the other three schools.

A nursery unit extension will be needed at Grampian Primary costing £312,000, to be completed by 2005.

Almost £1m is to be spent improving family facilities at four centres in the Mackworth and Morley estates areas of the city. The Mackworth-Morley SureStart programme, which is designed to help families with children aged under four, has been given the cash to improve buildings on the two estates.

It is the fourth SureStart programme in the city, the others are in Allenton, Sunnyhill and Rosehill, and was set up in 2003. Some of the money will be used to extend the Rydale Day Nursery, in Reigate Drive. A total of £400,000 will pay for a drop-in facility for families, a creche, a sensory room, office space for 10 staff, a training room and library, health room and meeting room.

Another £300,000 will be used to make extra space for the day care of children, from babies to two-year-olds, at Ashgate Nursery School, in Stepping Lane. The Step-In Centre, also in Stepping Lane, will have a £60,000 extension to provide 10 additional places, also for children under two years of age.

And £50,000 will be spent creating a family room and soft play area at Brackensdale Infant School, in Walthamstow Drive, Mackworth. Already £15,000 has been spent from the scheme on a minibus for taking parents and children to the different venues in the area and £122,000 refurbishing a staff base in Humbleton Drive, Mackworth. (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph)