Wednesday 2nd of August 2006 – Latchkey is closing
Got a phone call from Val yesterday afternoon, she sounded tearful and had some bad news… Your after school group has been in financial trouble for a while and needed £3000 to survive – I never quite understood why, I thought the government was helping fund after school groups.
They only managed to raise £1300 and she told me yesterday that they were going to close down this week! I was shocked! This prompted me to send an email to the local press and I think I’ll send another one to the local MP for Wansdworth, whoever that may be, will try and find out later… Val has been working there for the last 19 years, and Sam for about 23 years. Very sad indeed.
They said that the council must provide after school care, and so I rang the number Val gave me, for Play Services, but the person I spoke to inspired me with no confidence at all, acted like they were doing us a favour and couldn’t even tell me the address of the new place, whether they’d provide the children with food and he even said that they don’t do school pickups, in which case I really don’t see the point of an after school club, if the parent has to do the pickup, I mean, what if the parent works far away??? Complete madness!!!!
I sent an email to my bosses, proposing that I work in the office until 3:20 then do the remainder at home, either in the evening or weekend – i.e. in a flexible way. If they do agree to it it’ll be a lot better, as I’ll be able to enrol you at lots of after school activities, swimming, football, karate, guitar playing – I can use the money we save from the after school group to pay for all that!
It’s still all speculative at this point but suddenly I see a glimmer of hope, it’d be good if something positive happened right now, as it’s been one negative thing after another lately. It would also be wonderful to spend more time with you! Fingers crossed then! I spoke to you on the phone last night and told you about Latchkey closing. You said your eye was much better, it never got as swollen as it used to, so the diagnosis of herpes on the optical nerve seems to have been spot on!
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Here’s the email I sent to the leader of Wandsworth council, Edward Lister:
My son goes to Arndale Community Project Hilden House Frogmore London SW18 1HJ after school group, but yesterday I had a call from the wonderful woman who’s been working there for the last 19 years, to inform me that they are closing down. Not so long ago they were trying to raise £3000 to keep the project running, but they only managed to raise £1300. Val, the lady who runs it, was very upset when she gave me the news. I’m also very upset and so are all the parents who count on Latchkey to look after our children.
We don’t understand why it has to close. Can someone explain why? I thought the government wanted to help parents so how can they justify this situation where a wonderful place that’s been helping parents for over 20 years gets shut like this? I then called Play Services, as they are supposed to offer replacement after school service. The person I spoke to I spoke to inspired me with no confidence at all, told me they were actually only helping out and couldn’t even tell me the address of the new place, whether they’d provide the children with food (Latchkey feeds the kids with soup, sandwiches, fruit and juice) and he even said that they don’t do school pickups, in which case I really don’t see the point of an after school club, if a parent has to do the pickup, what if they work far away? I would be very grateful if my questions could be answered and perhaps something can be done to keep Latchkey going.