Friday 20 June 2008

Play In - Mums and Kids Occupy Leith Victoria Creche


Today a group of mums and kids took over Leith Victoria creche in protest at the Council's failure to honour their agreement to urgently look for other sources of funding to keep the creche open. Lothian NHS had said "We would be happy to discuss this when or if it's raised by our council partner" but it took the Council over two weeks to send a letter to Lothian NHS. Hopes has been raised in May that progress could be made - read more...

All of the mums taking part in the 'play in' today felt frustrated and angry that the Council have not taken any action to avoid the creche closures at the end of this month.

The Council and Edinburgh Leisure have picked on the creche service as an easy option. Women who use the service will be excluded from the sports centres in their own communities due to lack of childcare. The creche is a service that we all subsidise through our council tax and it is crazy to stop women having the chance to exercise when it cuts the rates of post natal depression, reduces obesity, makes healthier mums which leads to happier kids.

The protest was covered in the Edinburgh Evening News (scroll to bottom of page), on Leith FM, Talk 107 and was the main news item on Radio Forth throughout the day.

Wednesday 18 June 2008

Crèches are Edinburgh's best kept secret.


Why is it that when the Council and Edinburgh Leisure have a difficult problem to solve they walk away from it. The creche services offered by Edinburgh Leisure are not fully utilised and they claim they cannot afford to run them. Rather than take a creative approach and market the service better they have decided to close them. Jo Howlett argues that there are other solutions to the problem. Read her Mouthpiece in tonights' Evening News.

Quality Childcare - Worth fighting For