20/04/04 - Happier holidays ahead

Children in the rural areas of Carlisle are in line for a super summer. Carlisle Local Committee of Cumbria County Council today agreed to give £10,000 cash support to a bid by Carlisle City Council to expand its summer playscheme programme.

Councillor John Collier, chair of the Carlisle Local Committee, said:

"The money from us wiill enable more children in more places in rural Carlisle to benefit from summer playschemes run by the city council. Many of these children are in the more isolated parts of the district where there is no other direct provisison for them during the holidays.

"It also fits in with a project by the county council's Carlisle Sure Start Team which is aimed at developing registered holiday playscheme places in 2005."

Part of the remit of the county council's Carlisle Sure Start Team is to assess the need for childcare  and generate new registered places. The city council's schemes are usually for two or three days for children aged between five and 14 and are not registered, i.e. run in a particular location for more than three weeks in a year and registered by Ofsted.

Through a partnership arrangement with the Carlisle City Council's play development team, the Sure Start team is to research the childcare needs of parents across rural Carlisle with a view to generating new registered holiday places in 2005.

This will involve liaising with schools in the run-up to summer, making contact with parents before and during playschemes and organising public meetings in September to look at the potential for creating new registered holiday childcare places in Carlisle in 2005.

The Carlisle Local Committee also awarded £1,000 from its Early Years budget to Wiggles and Giggles Parent and Toddler Group, which wants to provide more space and better facilities at its meeting place in Bethesda Evangelical Church, Main Street, Brampton. Total cost of removing the raised pulpit area and carpeting the church hall is £2,078, with the church providing the rest of the money.

The group meets once a week and enables toddlers to learn social skills in structured sessions which include singing, actions, crafts, snack times and general play.