Crèche closures a crying shame

WHAT is the problem the city council has with the children of Edinburgh? From the chaos over school closures to the financial muddle which surrounds the hope of new high schools and the scrapping of the hugely successful school holiday GO4IT and Play4it schemes, you might think that the city council does not believe that children are the future.

Now it's the turn, apparently, of Edinburgh Leisure to do in the kids, by closing crèches at six leisure centres.

Of course, the councillors who took the decision to cut Edinburgh Leisure's budget by £300,000 will deny that this is their fault, but when you hand down such a sizeable reduction to the organisation charged with running them on your behalf, you know that it will be the most vulnerable who'll likely end up paying the price – especially when officials from Edinburgh Leisure will have made it plain that's what's going to happen.

The two crèches that are to remain open are Ainslie Park and the Royal Commonwealth Pool, but as the Commonwealth will close for a couple of years for refurbishment Edinburgh Leisure is really closing 87.5 per cent of crèche places in its facilities.

There are those who will say so what? It's not the kids who are the losers here but the mums who use the crèche while they get an hour's exercise to try and get rid of the post-pregnancy bulge, so it's not that important. But they would be wrong. Social interaction with other children at a young age is advantageous for children not attending nursery – not forgetting the independence time away from their parents encourages.

The crèches at Portobello, Leith Victoria, Craiglockhart, Drumbrae, Kirkliston and Gracemount are not luxuries used by parents as a babysitting service whenever they fancy meeting their friends for a coffee. They are a childcare resource which gives parents the chance to try and keep healthy and, as a result, be better parents to their children, and hopefully instil in them the idea that getting some exercise is a good thing.

This is not the first time that Edinburgh Leisure has had to bear the brunt of having its funding slashed by the council – this is not a party political issue.

Crèche closures were on the agenda just a couple of years ago when £300,000 (seems to be a popular figure) was taken by the council to pay for an overspend in its culture and leisure services, while a promise of an extra £250,000 was then cut to £150,000.

Similarly, a £1.5m VAT refund for the organisation saw most of the cash stay in council coffers. As a result, Edinburgh Leisure lost its chairman, Professor Fred Coulter, who basically could no longer stand the interference of the council.

Back then, he claimed most of the VAT money was taken to cover council debts, with only eight per cent of it going to Edinburgh Leisure to improve its financial state, but at the same time there was constant council pressure to keep under-performing facilities, such as Leith Waterworld, open.

This still seems to be the case today. This fun pool only opens Friday to Sunday, yet has heating and water-cleaning costs seven days a week. Latest figures suggest it costs £1500 a day to keep this pool open, and there are also suggestions it will close anyway after the Commonwealth's refurbishment, so why not bite the bullet on that now and save an annual £546,000, and keep the crèches open?

Let's not forget that Leith also has the Victoria swimming pool, which, unlike Waterworld, is free for all primary school children.

While Edinburgh Leisure says this was a difficult decision, it is hard to believe that it was the only one it could come to when it has a white elephant like Waterworld on its books.

There will be many parents who would rather crèches remain open than a few flumes. As one Edinburgh mother said on our website: "I'd rather my money was spent on this (the crèches] than trams. I'd rather my money was spent on this than a Hogmanay street party. I'd rather my money was spent on this than continually jigging about the layout of the town road system. I'd rather my money was spent on this than council robes."

Why we need Sir Terry
I'M glad that Sir Terry Farrell has managed to hang on to his job as Edinburgh's design tsar. The city needs someone with architectural experience looking at the way the place is developing – the planners cannot be relied upon for this. It's not their job to evaluate the aesthetics of a design, just whether or not it fits legal requirements.

But I do think that Sir Terry needs to be a bit more vocal about just what his role involves. He's been critical about changes to traffic layouts in the New Town and the way the Waterfront is developing, but then so have countless others.

His voice needs to be heard, otherwise all those architects who don't believe his job is required will have a point.

Shoes maketh the man
SHOES can say a lot about a man, and given the paucity of decent shoe shops for men in this city, they've not been shouting about how smart he is, or how highly polished his achievements are. That's all about to change now that Church's is coming to George Street.

Church's are the shoes that James Bond wore. So come on men, you're finally being given a licence to thrill from the feet up.