WHITTLESEA parents have won their fight for temporary childcare during the Community Activity Centre redevelopment.
The council this week yielded to overwhelming demands to keep the childcare facilities for children aged up to three running during the 18-month construction, and promised a second relocatable building for infants.
The recently announced $7 million upgrade of Whittlesea’s CAC caused uproar from parents last week, when it emerged the council had not organised a temporary venue for babies and toddlers in its relocated long daycare centre.
Resident Anne Trevana, from the parent action group which sprang up in response, said there was great relief at the solution.
“We’re really happy. The community has said very clearly we want the service to remain as a whole,” she said.
“We have a great confidence and trust in the council’s childcare centre as an institution.”
Councillors voted last week to provide two relocatable buildings for both 0–3 and 3–5- year-old kindergarten and long daycare children at AF Walker Reserve, at the corner of Laurel and Forest streets, the site of temporary accommodation after the 2009 bushfires.
Staff levels would remain unchanged and children would be moved there by the end of June, in time for the start of construction.
Family and youth services manager Mary Agostino said the council’s decision would enable children and staff to stay together.
“It will ensure a smoother transition back to Whittlesea Community Activity Centre once construction is complete,” she said.
The redeveloped CAC is expected to be finished in early 2014. It will include a community hall, new maternal and child health rooms, a larger kindergarten and space for a library.
