A BURY-based social services day nursery has closed as the local authority ushers in a new era in family support services.

For conventional nursery provision is undergoing a major shake-up.

This is to provide what Bury Council says is an integrated family support service to improve services to all people, and meet Government criteria.

In essence, the objective is to enable the work of nursery staff to shift away from traditional day care for working parents, to provide more flexible packages of support for vulnerable families and children with special needs.

The first stage in this process has involved the closure of the Castlecroft Day Nursery in Bury.

Staff and social services case children are now being catered for at a smaller site, more accessible to children in need and their families.

And the £150,000 expected to be generated from the sale of the nursery in Castlecroft Road will be ploughed back into family support services. Mrs Fran Thomas, Bury Council head of children and family services, said: "We have shut down Castlecroft because the building was on its last legs anyway."

Nursery staff will be deployed to work more outside and in the community.

The shake-up will also extend to the local authority's other social services day nursery, Victoria, in Radcliffe, from next April. But the building will remain open.

Earlier, Bury Council stated that it recognised that the quality of care at the nurseries was high, but the service as a whole was not sufficient and did not meet people's needs.

The new, integrated service will be comprehensive and will help families requiring assistance during the evenings and weekends.

Mrs Thomas said the aim was to cater for families who required a service beyond childcare provision.

"It's much more about working and supporting families and to provide staff to continuously work with them," stressed Mrs Thomas.

Once the new integrated service is fully operational, it will mean working with up to 250 children, rather than the 40 attached to Victoria and Castlecroft.

Mrs Thomas said: "The whole thing is about how we can keep the quality of service and to deliver to more people within the same amount of money.

"We want to use resources as effectively as we can while maintaining quality and becoming more efficient."