YOUNG families from Alton’s Bushy Leaze Children and Families Centre were in determined mood last Friday.

Armed with placards, they joined Save Our Children Centres campaigners from across Hampshire in a march through Winchester to protest against the prospect of losing what they regard as a vital facility.

Bushy Leaze is an Early Years Centre with integrated services for families with children aged under five. It comprises a nursery school and a children’s centre which currently work seamlessly together.

But, with pressure to meet a funding shortfall of £98m by April 2017, Hampshire County Council has decreed that of this £21.5m must be met from the Children’s Services budget. It is proposed that £8.5m of savings could be delivered by combining Children’s Centre Services, Early Help Hubs and the Youth Support Services to form a single Family Support Service, working out of fewer buildings, and with a streamlined management and operating structure.

Current staffing levels (300 employees across Hampshire) are expected to reduce overall by up to 60 per cent, with effect from early 2017.

This new model, according to the county council, would “better meet the needs of vulnerable families with children aged nought to 19 (extending to age 25 if the young person has learning difficulties or a disability)” while improving access to a range of other services, including the child and adolescent mental health service, and a range of public health and other support services.

But, critics argue, it will mean the loss of the Bushy Leaze that has, over the past 20 years, become a haven for parents with babies and toddlers seeking vital early years support and the culling of a staff team which provides a lifeline for many struggling to rise to the challenge of parenthood.

In East Hampshire, there are currently three Children and Families Centres and the proposal is to close Chase at Bordon and Heath at Petersfield, or to make them available for alternative community use, leaving Bushy Leaze in Alton to provide the Family Support Service hub for the district. By rationalising the number of buildings in direct use, the county council could save up to £1m.

For those families who have come to rely on the services provided by Bushy Leaze it is suggesting the unthinkable.

Children’s Centre leader Ann Blackman is chillingly clear about the impact of such a move.

“Services provided by Bushy Leaze will be decimated, the nursery will stand alone and all of the parent and baby/toddler groups both in the centre and at outreach halls, family support, baby massage, holiday stay and play sessions, Saturday Dad’s and weaning courses would no longer be available,” she said.

“In the model proposed by Hampshire County Council, support will only be provided to a very small number of families that have reached crisis point. By removing the early support that the centre currently provides families will slip through the net and many will end up requiring a much higher level of support later on.

“The financial impact that this will have on intervention services such as social care and mental health services is incalculable as is the negative impact on families.”

According to Ms Blackman, the centre has been bombarded with letters of support from anxious parents who are desperate to save Bushy Leaze Children Centre and has received many letters of support.

One young mum wrote: “After my last child was born I suffered with severe post-natal depression and Bushy Leaze was there with the help and support that I needed to bond with my daughter. I was helped by being put on the baby massage course, and when my daughter was diagnosed as dairy intolerant the staff helped me to cope with all the changes that I had to put in place. Without Bushy Leaze I don’t know where I would be and I know that my daughter and I would not be so close.”

Last Friday’s protest march through Winchester drew campaigners of all ages, outraged at the prospect of losing such valued facilities, but with the inevitability of the proposals being put into place supporters of Bushy Leaze are already exploring ways of finding alternative funding for essential Children’s Centre services and activities.

Ms Blackmana added: “We are hoping to establish a charitable trust at Bushy Leaze and have actively started to look for potential funding streams. In order to maintain the services as they are currently with the same staffing structure, we would need raise in the region of £132,000 per year.”