FAMILIES are still on tenterhooks waiting to find out if councillors will decide to save children’s centres from cuts.

On Thursday members of Brighton and Hove City Council dismissed a proposal to save all children’s centres and related services from cuts.

The Labour group put forward an amendment which, if voted through, would immediately save the services but, despite a number of councillors voicing their support for children’s centres, just 15 backed the move, while 37 voted against.

Councillors instead agreed to protect the mayor’s office from cuts and keep funding political party assistants.

As party leaders work on a compromise today to try and set a final budget, Labour group leader Warren Morgan said it is still his intention to try to save children’s centres.

More than 100 angry parents marched on Hove Town Hall in a protest organised by the Brighton Children’s Centre Campaign.

The march was supported by The Argus Save Our Centres campaign and other groups such as the GMB union.

Anna Medvedovsky, 23, from Hove, and two-year-old Alexis joined the march, because she fears if the centres are the victim of cutbacks mothers in need would be out of reach from help.

She said: “The children’s centres were originally started because of cases of child abuse and neglect, in the most serious cases children died.

“Children’s centres and health visitors were put in place to pre- vent this from happening, stopping those who needed help from slipping through the net and to generally safeguard children under the banner that every child matters.

“I don’t understand how the council thinks this no longer stands, how anything will differ between before and after the cen- tres? Do children no longer matter? It’s despicable.”

At least half of respondents to the council’s children’s centre consultation disagreed with most of the proposals and many voiced “strong opposition” against them.

Former childminder Angela Bacon, 63, of Hove, used children’s centres across the cities for more than six years and said they were a “marvellous” resource as she pledged her support for The Argus.