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St Peter’s to have new Sure Start centre built

Jeni Harvey
26/ 1/2006

PLANS for a new children's centre to serve Middleton's east and south wards are moving ahead - and it looks like St Peter's school could be the chosen site.

In last week's Guardian we reported that proposals to build a new Sure Start centre were underway and, after the Middleton Township meeting, locations at St Gabriel's and Alkrington primary schools were being considered.

But the latest plans, set to be approved at a meeting of Rochdale Council's cabinet on 30 January, are for a brand-new centre to be built from scratch at St Peter's RC Primary school, off Kirkway.

An extract from the report due to be considered by the cabinet says that the school was chosen because it 'offers a large site, part of which is in local authority ownership, with a large area of dedicated car parking'.

It continues: "The building is fully used at present and a children's centre would require new build. St Peter's occupies a reasonably central location with regard to potential reach (930) and is in Middleton East ward, an area of significant social disadvantage, which is amongst the 10 to 20 per cent of most deprived areas nationally.

"The school's catchment area covers a significant amount of this ward as well as parts of South ward. This proximity would allow greater access to the centre by hard to reach families."

The after-school club currently running at St Peter's, as well as its good public transport links from Middleton Junction and Alkrington, also contributed to its being chosen as the favourite location for the new Sure Start centre.

Alkrington Primary and St Gabriel's Primary were thought not to have as good transport links as St Peter's, and St Gabriel's was also thought to be too close to the Rochdale/Oldham boundary for families travelling from south Middleton.

Other sites considered were the Emerson Centre in Rhodes and Sunny Brow nursery school, which were deemed too far away from the Middleton south and east catchment area.

This new centre will be one of seven new Sure Start centres to be built in the Rochdale borough, costing a staggering £2.3million in total.

And together with the existing 'phase one' centre at Hollin Sure Start and planned centres at Furrow Community School and Boarshaw Primary School, it will serve a total of 2191 under fives.

As reported in last week's Guardian, if approved, the children's centre will bring a whole range of new facilities for the families of east and south Middleton.

Paul Good, heading the scheme, said: "There will be opportunities for parents to access information about local services that will include child care services such as local playgroups and private sector providers.

"They will be able to access Job Centre Plus if they're looking for employment, or get training to take them back into the world of work after having their children.

"Things that we're running already in some of our children's centres include Citizen's Advice bureaux and a visiting registrar who can record births and so on. It's a whole raft of services for parents and young children, offering the fullest degree of support in a one-stop shop."


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Most recent 1 of 1 user comments

   iv read about the plans for the sure start building to be built on st peters school as they have a large amount of land, but reading the story about alkrington moss primary i would say they have alot of land too and i think that if they had thought about it properly they could have put there building on the land at alkrington moss. not only is it close to all surrounding areas it would bring more people from the community into the school and alkrington moss is surrounded by council estates then there would be no need for the school to close
louise, alkrington
29/01/2006 at 20:27
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