MORE parents are needed to adopt children in Wiltshire because the number of people coming forward wanting to add a child to their family has fallen.

Wiltshire Council described it as a significant drop from 88 adoptive parents in 2017 to 66 last year. But children in the authority’s care are being adopted more quickly than five years ago.

Cabinet member for children’s services Laura Mayes said: “These things go in cycles and we were concerned we had too many adoptive parents and left them disappointed without children to adopt. Now it has tilted the other way so we are increasing the work to make sure there are enough parents.

"The human side of this is that when we’ve made the decision that adoption is right for a child, the sooner we can get that child adopted and the better their lives will be.”

Between 2013-2016, it took on average 545 days for a child in care to be adopted. By 2015-2018, it had dropped to 392, and children spent 153 fewer days in care. Last year it took 326 days on average for children to be adopted.