Campaign Relaunch Gets More Coverage

The relaunch of the Save Our Creches campaign has had more coverage today. Please check out the BBC News website and the Edinburgh Evening News.

Next Week Local Demos At Ainslie Park And Portobello

We're staging a couple of mini demos next week

- outside Ainslie Park between 10.30 and 11.30 on Thursday 10th Dec, and
- outside Portobello Swim centre at 10.30 on Friday 11th Dec.

Others may follow at Gracemount and Drumbrae - just let us know what you're planning there and we'll spread the word. Come and join us at any of the demos if you can - and most important of all, remember our demo outside the City Chambers on the Royal Mile Thursday 17th Dec 09.30 to 10.30.

Save Our Crèche Campaign - STV Coverage 2 December

Following on from the campaign's first press release, the media has started to take interest in what we're doing. See interviews from Ainslie Park users and Edinburgh Leisure on the STV website.

(You can find the piece about 2 minutes and 50 seconds in).

Keep up the good work, and please use the email address to let us know of any other coverage you see.

Save Our Crèche Campaign - Demo on 17 December 2009

We're holding a demo outside the City Chambers, on the High Street between 09.30 and 10.30 on Thursday 17th December to lobby councillors arriving for the final full council meeting of the year - we believe our elected representatives should pressurise Edinburgh Leisure into dropping its crèche closure plans. Come and join us.

If you can, please contact your councillors, MSPs and MPs and ask them to contact Edinburgh Leisure and urge them to reverse the crèche closure policy via this link.

We have two petitions - an online petition and a paper petition. Please sign the online petition and use the paper one wherever you go!

And there's now a Facebook group for people to discuss ideas - it's called Save Edinburgh Leisure Creches. Come and join us on Facebook

Save Our Crèche Campaign Reignited

Last Tuesday, Edinburgh Leisure announced its plans to close its remaining crèches in the capital. The crèches at Ainslie Park, Drumbrae, Gracemount and Portobello are to shut, due to lack of funding, in March 2010 unless an alternative provider can be found. We fear one crèche, at Ainslie Park, may not reopen after Christmas.

Closure will have a huge negative impact on the lives of many families in the city, never mind on the dedicated staff who'll lose their jobs. The service currently provided is excellent. Its loss would be a terrible blow for the parents/carers and children who use the crèches. If people can't access health and fitness services they are less able to look after themselves, and the children they care for. The impact mentally and physically could be immense on individuals and increase pressure on the health service at a time when all political parties say they accept the need (and indeed actively lobby) for better health services - what use are Leisure Centres a significant section of the community cannot access?

Coverage of the decision has already begun – see the BBC News site here.

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.

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.