PENNY Stern accurately describes the excellent work done by Oxfordshire’s Children’s Centres.

They provide an invaluable range of services for young children and their parents in a cost-effective way. We often took our son to the Marston Northway Children’s Centre, which he enjoyed very much.

The staff were excellent and could be relied on for valuable advice. A weekly highlight was the singing and story session which concluded with parents and children from diverse countries and varied faiths dancing the hokey cokey together, a great way of encouraging integration at an early age.

Now the county council wants to shut all our children’s centres, for a saving of £6m.

It is estimated that the inheritance tax changes announced by George Osborne in the budget will cost the Treasury £1.05bn. A tiny fraction of this would finance Oxfordshire’s children’s centres for years to come.

The direction of Government policy is to transfer resources from the young to the old, with damaging long-term consequences.

Melinda Tilley, referring to protesters against the closures, said: “It was hard listening to some of those stories but those people are very brave.”

Rather than patronising concerned parents, she should be energetically arguing the case with David Cameron and George Osborne for funding to ensure all 44 of our children’s centres stay open.

CHRIS BREWER
McCabe Place
Headington
Oxford