Nursery World - New Government figures reveal true scale of children's centre closures

More than 1,300 children’s centres closed between 2010 and 2019, newly-published Government figure show.

The figures reveal that over a third of local authority areas have seen a reduction in children's centres of 50 per cent or more

The figures were provided by the Government in response to a parliamentary question about the number of designated Sure Start children's centres that are in each local authority in England by shadow education secretary Angela Rayner.

The local authority with the largest number of centre closures between 2010 and 2019 was Essex, which started with 85 centres and now has just 19. The figures do not include children’s centre linked sites as they do not fall under the true definition of what a children’s centre is.

Other areas with big net losses of children’s centres include Staffordshire, which lost 46, and Birmingham, which lost 41 centres.

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