Ladywell Children's Centre

Romayne and I had a tour around Ladywell Children's Centre yesterday. This is in Rushey Mead (next to Ladywell Day Centre and between Slagrove Place and Dressington Avenue), on the Ladywell Pre-School site. The pre-school building has been retained and a large extension added, provide a range of extra facilities. The new centre is partially open now, in that the nursery and pre-school are back on site, but it will be officially opened on October 19th.
Facilities will include:

• pre-school group for under 5s
• nursery for under 5s (from 3 months old)
• Rooms for health visitors/social workers/speech therapist etc to meet with children and parents
• computers with internet access for the use of the local community
• colour therapy room and extensive facilities for children with special needs
• large room with sofas for parents and childminders to drop in for a coffee and meet other parents and children

The centre will be consulting local residents and stakeholders soon to find out more about how they would like to use the building, so the exact activities and facilities at the centre, will depend on what people think would be useful (eg toy library visits, midwifery services etc).

I was very impressed by the facilities there, particularly the outside play space and gardens for the children and think it will be a great community asset. Some poor person has a huge amount of flat pack furniture to assemble over the next month before the grand opening though!