BANBURY'S new Sunshine Centre was opened on Friday with a promise that its services would be available to everyone.

The centre, now based at the Bradley community hall in Edmunds Road, on Bretch Hill, completed the move from premises on the Orchard Fields School site half-a-mile away.

The change of base was forced on the centre by the planned closure of the existing classrooms when a new Orchard Fields school opens in Princess Diana Park in September.

Welcoming visitors to the new site, John Bridgeman, chairman of the Sunshine trustees, said the centre was a remarkable project that supplied a unique support service for children and families on Bretch Hill.

He said: "We provide support that is beyond the capacity of any individual statutory agency, and the trustees are aware that more has to be done to fund the centre's future ambitions.

"We need more regular funding, and we need to secure it for the medium-term future."

Centre manager Jill Edge, said Banbury's Ruscote ward was in the top 20 per cent of England's most deprived areas.

She said: "The other most deprived areas are inner city regions, but Banbury is a rural town."

She said 44 per cent of residents had no formal qualifications, and that only 16.4 per cent of school leavers achieved five GCSEs in A to C grades, when the national average was 52 per cent.

Mrs Edge added that a quarter of the area's children were from low-income households, that 43 per cent of families lived in social housing, and that 61 per cent of those working were in routine jobs.

She said the centre's aim was to advance the education and social welfare of residents of Bretch Hill and the Warwick Road estates with the proviso that the services were freely available to all.

She said: "The Sunshine Centre believes we are all in the same business - providing for local children and families."

Mrs Edge said the centre opened in January 1998 and had moved from small beginnings to having 21 staff and ten volunteer helpers, who provided families with a valuable asset.