A PETITION signed by more than 1,700 people has failed to save a leisure centre creche.

Angry mums started to protest after the facility at the Waterside Farm Sports Centre, Canvey, was closed at the end of March.

Anne Wood, a Canvey Independent councillor for Canvey East, demanded a rethink at the latest Castle Point council meeting claiming the closure would isolate mums with young children and deny them their health and well-being.

Castle Point mayor Beverley Egan intially refused to acknowledge the 1,731-signature petition handed over by Mrs Wood as she had no advance warning it was coming, but changed her mind. Yet it made no difference as 21 outof 34 councillors voted against reconsidering the decision.

After the meeting, mum-of-two Sharon Rogers, 36, of Sayers, Thundersley, said: "We are gutted and we don't feel like the petition was looked at.

"The crux of it is that we were not approached at the beginning, before they decided to close the creche.

"But we tried our best and we couldn't have fought any harder."

During the meeting, angry Mrs Wood recalled a consultation carried out by the council on residents' priorities for the borough, answered by just one per cent of residents.

She said: "What makes me laugh is that when one per cent of people answer a questionnaire the council takes notice of them, but I have a petition of 1,700 signatures!"

Jeffrey Stanley, a Conservative councillor for Boyce Ward, said it was not possible to keep the creche open as it was costing the council £50,000 a year.

He said: "Every single penny the council spends is taken out of the pocket of the people of Castle Point.

"There are on average ten or 12 children using the creche every day.

"It is not possible to subsidise such a little-used facility for such a large amount of money."

He added the council was not obliged to run a creche and there were many well run private facilities in the area.

He also admitted that the cost of improving toilet facilities at the creche - required to bring it up to Ofsted standards - was another factor in the decision.