A DOZEN day care centres are to close and further cuts to youth services could follow, as Government austerity measures continue to hit the North-East’s biggest council.

Facing funding cuts of £308m, Durham County Council’s Labour cabinet today (Wednesday, January 13) agreed to close 12 of its 17 remaining day care centres, in a bid to save £1.59m.

Councillor Lucy Hovvels, the cabinet member for adult and health services, said she was supporting the shake-up with a “heavy heart” and understood changes could be difficult, but they had to be made.

The centres to close are: Ebony Woodwork Unit, Consett; Chester-le-Street Pathways; Crook Pathways; the Proudfoot Centre, Bishop Auckland; Annfield Plain Pathways; Silver Street, Spennymoor; Consett Pathways; the Harmire Unit, Barnard Castle; Bishop Auckland Pathways, Tindale Crescent; the Bracken Hill Centre, Peterlee; Bede Day Centre, Barnard Castle; and Stanhope Pathways.

In their place, five centres would be retained to offer specialist services to around 100 people with complex needs.

They are: Durham Pathways, Pity Me; Spennymoor Pathways, at Spennymoor Leisure Centre; Newton Aycliffe Pathways, at Aycliffe Leisure Centre; Peterlee Pathways; and Stanley Pathways, at the Louisa Centre.

Demand for the service has been falling and five centres were shut three years ago. However, many people who use the centres are worried at the closures and critics have accused the cabinet of targeting cuts at the elderly and vulnerable, from the cradle to the grave.

The cabinet also agreed to consult on a shake-up of youth work, aimed at saving around £1m.

Five council-run youth centres, in Fishburn, Newton Aycliffe, Peterlee, Seaham and Spennymoor, could be transferred to volunteers and help would be targeted at young people thought to need it most.

Cllr Ossie Johnson, the cabinet member for children and young people’s services, called the review a “long overdue process of modernisation to make the service fit for the 21st century”.

Consultation will run for 12 weeks from Tuesday, February 2, and final decisions will be taken in the autumn.

The council expects to have cut £171m from its 2010 budget by this April, and axed 1,950 jobs. But another £123.7m of savings are required by 2020, including £40m in 2016-17.

Final decisions on the 2016-17 budget will be taken in February, but the authority is expected to increase council tax by nearly four per cent, including two per cent for adult social care.