ANGRY mums say they feel "pushed aside" after being told they must stop attending a parenting group because they live in the wrong area.

For the past four years, the Parent Support Group, based at the Mosses Centre, Bury, has been providing helpful advice and creche facilities for families across the borough.

The group is supported by the Bury Family Centre, which also provides important one-to-one services on behalf of Bury Social Services.

But council cuts to the centre have had a knock-on effect to additional services it provides, such as the parent group.

Cash tied to the Bury East Area Initiative and Redvales Surestart programmes must now be used to run the group, making families outside the two areas ineligible to use it.

Jill Taylor (37), of Collen Crescent, Brandlesholme, attends the centre with six-year-old daughter Hayley. She said: "We'll lose the support of the workers here and all the friends we've met that will be in the other group.

"Hayley will lose all the friends that she's known since she was two years old and there's no other way for her to see them because this is where we all get together."

Sharon Berry (31) of Birch Avenue, Tottington, has four children; Katrina (13), Jayde (9) , Jonathan (5) and Ryan (3). She uses the centre regularly.

Sharon told the Bury Times: "It affects me big style. I'm very angry about it. When things get frustrating you get support from everyone else and my son uses the creche.

"I feel as though I have been singled out, pushed to one side and forgotten about because I'm from the wrong area."

The family centre now hopes to give the excluded parents help and advice about setting up their own self-funded parent group.

Family Centre project manager Wendy Buckland said: "Some parents are very upset and so are we. The group has been very valuable and supports many families throughout Bury. When you know how much the work can help them it's very frustrating.

"Nobody wants funding cuts. It's families that matter. But we don't blame the council because this was an additional service we were offering."

Bury Council's head of children and family services, Fran Thomas, said: "There are financial pressures with regard to social services this year, and some short-term decisions have had to be made.

"There is no way we are saying that these parents don't have important needs, but we have had to concentrate on statutory duties such as child protection.

"The family centres are very much part of our future and we are planning an integrated family support service across the borough, instead of people only getting a service if they live in a certain area."