Children’s centre to be built in Rayleigh (From Echo)

Children’s centre to be built in Rayleigh

4:30am Friday 5th March 2010 in

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A PRIMARY school is looking forward to building a children’s centre in its grounds to offer advice and support to families in Rayleigh.

Grove Wood Primary School, in Grove Road, was given the go-ahead by Essex County Council’s development and regulation committee to build a Sure Start children’s centre.

The county council, which is also behind the plans, wants to build a single-storey building in the car park.

It would include a creche with baby-changing facilities, a training room for community group activities, a health room, an office and an information drop-in room.

The centre would be open Monday to Saturday, from 8am to 10pm, and 10am to 4pm on Sundays.

School spokeswoman Elaine Read said: “It’s a fantastic opportunity for the local community to be able access all the services that children’s centres provide.

“It’s going to be community-led, so whatever the community wants we will be providing here.

“It’s early days yet, so we don’t have an opening date. Planning permission has just been approved.

“We think it’s a very positive thing and we are all very excited.”

The school’s deputy head, Richard Green, previously told the Echo he hoped the centre would be built by the end of 2010.

The county council’s design statement envisages two creche staff, two office staff and one person to work in the health room.

The creche could cater for up to 16 children and the meeting room for 15 adults.

There will be no expansion to the existing car park, which has 35 spaces, and during the building stage, there would be a temporary loss of six parking spaces.

Instead, the county council has proposed paying for improvements to a nearby public car park at the end of Grove Road to cater for extra cars.

In January, Richard Evans, the head of environmental services at Rochford District Council, wrote an e-mail on behalf of the council saying he had no objection to the plans in principle.

But he was concerned about the number of extra parking spaces the county council would fund at the Grove Road car park.

He said the seven extra spaces should be expanded to 14, and Section 106 money be provided for the local infrastructure.

Rayleigh Town Council has also supported the application.