THREE East Lancashire day nurseries are set to close as council bosses begin a major overhaul of care for youngsters.

County councillors were due to meet today to approve the closure of six pre-school nurseries across Lancashire, including North Valley Day Nursery, North Valley Road, in Colne.

As well as the proposed closures, consultations on the future of the Brunshaw Family Unit in Burnley, are also continuing.

The six nurseries, including Manchester Road Day Nursery, Accrington, and Bright Street Day Nursery, Clitheroe, currently provide pre-school care for children from 'disadvantaged' backgrounds.

The money saved from their closure will be used to create new family support centres, which will work with the same disadvantaged families but provide help for youngsters until they are 18.

No details of the savings involved by closing the nurseries have been revealed, but if approved, they would be shut from next summer.

In the case of North Valley, negotiations would also have to take place with the landlord of the building to terminate the lease early.

The cash saved will be used to create family support centres, which will be made up of support workers who will help families with specific problems.

Family centre workers will also be employed to provide respite care and provide help to people running support groups.

Under the proposals, the hours staff work will be more flexible than the current 8am-6pm shifts operated by the day nurseries.

As well as helping the youngsters who currently use the day nurseries, parents with children who suffer mental illness, substance abuse or domestic violence problems will be helped up to the age of 18 years.

Teenage parents, parents of teenagers with behavioural problems and support for ethnic minority families will also receive help.

It is hoped the new support will reduce the number of children needing to go into care by tackling problems before they get out of hand.

The quality protects panel of Lancashire County Council is set to decide the closures today.

The county's cabinet asked for nurseries to be selected for closure after approving the Family Support Service project in principle.

A member of staff at North Valley said they knew a meeting was taking place today and staff themselves were also having a meeting today.

County councillor Chris Cheetham, cabinet member for social services, said: "We are proposing a major overhaul of children's services in Lancashire which will make them modern, efficient and caring.

"We have talked to many people across the county about what they want to see and the overwhelming message we have had is that people want family support services but don't want this to be intensive or to feel they are losing control. We hope these new plans will deliver that.

"I hope the panel will agree with me that this is the way forward and we can move these plans forward, transforming our children and family services."