CAMPAIGNERS have taken to the streets today to warn the closure of all of Oxfordshire’s children’s centres would be “a failure to a whole generation”.

Protesters stood outside County Hall to urge Oxfordshire County Council to protect the centres from cuts to services in a protest.

The county council has proposed closing all 44 of the county’s children’s centres and its seven early intervention hubs, replacing them with eight ‘family and resources centres’.

It would be part of moves to create a slimmed-down service for youngsters aged up to 19, saving £8m.

The replacement centres would be based in areas considered to have the highest need, with three based in Oxford – in Barton, Blackbird Leys and Rose Hill – and the others in Banbury, Bicester, Witney, Abingdon, and Didcot.

They would focus on helping only the most vulnerable children and families, scrapping universal services for all parents such as ‘stay and play’ schemes.

Jill Huish, 33, of Save Oxfordshire Children’s Centres, warned the changes would be “extremely detrimental”.

Ms Huish, who uses the children’s centre in Britannia Road, Banbury, said: “This would be a failure to a whole generation who use these centres to get help for a range of things, including housing and finances.”

She said she was particularly concerned that programmes run at children’s centres such as Freedom, which helps families escape from domestic violence, could also be lost.

Children’s centres offer activities for under-fives, as well as information and support for parents. Early intervention hubs bring together services supporting children and families, targeting drug and alcohol use, teenage pregnancies, school exclusions and youth unemployment.

But under the new proposals, the council would halve the £16m it spends on them and merge the remaining budget with £4m from children’s social care, spent on ‘family support teams’.

This would create the new service covering youngsters up to the age of 19, aimed at targeting help at the most vulnerable.

Cabinet member for children, education and families Melinda Tilley said the council would to talk to community groups which wanted to continue to run family support services from the buildings.

She said: “Clearly we would rather not be in the position of having to make such significant savings, however this is illustrative of the stark financial challenges councils in England are facing.

“If people step up and say they want to help then we will listen to them. But we have got to halve our budget for these centres and that means looking at new ways of delivering the services.”

She added that the changes came as the council was facing unprecedented pressures.

On September 15, the cabinet will be asked to back a consultation on the changes that is expected to begin later this month.

It will outline three options, with the creation of the eight new centres, with a saving £8m, the council’s “preferred option”.

The second option involves continuing some universal services at the eight centres but reducing ‘outreach’ work, with the third involving six centres and £1m in grant funding to support community-run services for families.

The council said it could not say how many job losses would result in any of the three options, as some staff are expected to transfer to the new service. But it said it currently employs 433 people across its 44 children’s centres and early intervention hubs – all of which would close under the preferred proposals.

Liz Brighouse, Labour leader of the opposition at the county council, said: “We have had six years of budget reductions now and we are now cutting to the bone.

“The whole situation is impossible and we are now losing our children’s centres as well.”