THE leader of Swindon Council has rejected a request to keep children’s centres earmarked for closure open until the election.

Anne Snelgrove, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for South Swindon, has written to David Renard (Con, Haydon Wick) asking him to postpone the move until after the General Election.

She said that if Labour came to power money would be provided to keep them all open.

The Labour move has been dismissed as a publicity stunt ahead of May’s vote.

Last year the council announced it was closing seven children’s centres, with two being replaced by multi-generational facilities, in an attempt to save £770,000.

The centres to close are Eldene, Croft, Salt Way, Robert le Kyng, West Swindon, Butterflies and Ladybird, with the new facilities opening in West and North Swindon.

Although there was much opposition to the move, council leaders said it was vital in the face of strong financial pressures and those which served the most vulnerable children would be protected.

But Anne has said closing the centres will leave many parents without a support structure and if Labour came to power it would provide more free childcare hours.

She said: “I hope that Councillor Renard is able to commit to my suggestion to keep the centres open for another six weeks, as I have spoken to countless parents in Swindon who have a serious concern about how they will manage after the centres close.

“We have the opportunity to help more mums and dads into work with Labour’s childcare offer, and I’m determined that the families of Swindon won’t miss out on this because of the council’s short-sighted plans.”

However, Coun Renard said even he if he was inclined to delay the closures he did not think doing so was in his power.

He said: “I am not going to overturn a decision which was passed by full council at the request of someone not on the council. I’d have to check even if I have the authority to do that.

“Until this appeared in a press release I had not had any letter from Anne or anyone else in the Labour group.

“To me this shows that it is more about gaining attention than any meaningful headlines. We passed the budget last week, which Labour did not vote against, and there was nothing in their amendments mentioning reversing the decisions.

“All of the plans are now in place and it would be extremely disruptive, especially as there is no guarantee of funding at the end of the six-week period.”