Wandsworth Council is proposing some changes to the services offered from these two children's centres, both of which would see Stay and Play sessions stop being run by the Council and taken over by private companies instead. This means they would stop being free to attend.
Here are the details from the Council:
Garratt Park Chidren's Centre
It is proposed to de-designate Garratt Park as a Children’s Centre because the site is too small and only available on a part-time basis as the centre hosts a popular morning nursery. This makes it difficult for us to deliver the range of services needed for it to be a successful Children’s Centre
This proposal would not affect the nursery provision. Both universal and targeted Children’s Centre services would remain available to Garratt Park users at other centres, such as Smallwood School and West Hill’s King George’s Park Children’s Centres.
Afternoon use of the Garratt Park building will be made available for stay and play provision but this will not be provided by the Council. As in most other cases e.g. Bolingbroke Stay and Play, stay and play is likely to incur a small charge
Triangle
Faylands Children’s Centre currently delivers limited outreach services from the Triangle site. As our recent survey shows, the real demand in this location is for universal Stay and Play. Therefore we do not intend to continue the outreach services from this site and propose to de-designate it as a Children's Centre.
Instead the Council intends to seek a third party provider to deliver universal stay and play and Nursery provision from the Triangle site. As in most other cases e.g. Bolingbroke Stay and Play, this is likely to incur a small charge.
This proposal would also allow for a morning nursery session. Both universal and targeted Children's Centre services would remain available to the Triangle users at other centres, such as Balham Nursery School and Faylands sites.
You can respond to the Council consultation here. It's open until 24 May 2016.