Thousands of London's children get set for "Summer in the City".

A huge swathe of London's

children are being offered a range of summer activities in the capital

in one of the first example of joined-up services between three

boroughs.

Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea and Hammersmith and

Fulham councils are offering play schemes, sports and arts activities

to children from all three boroughs meaning young people have a chance

to enjoy a much wider range of activities while keeping fit, learning

and having fun.

Arts and

cultural events include steel pan and street dance events in

Westminster, the butterflies exhibition at the Natural History Museum in

Kensington and Fantastic Mr Fox acted outside at Fulham Palace.

Meanwhile

those wanting to keep active can enjoy play days featuring basketball

and rounders or attend the London soccer school at Chelsea or the

Parkour/freerunning camp at Westminster Academy.

There

are also plenty of joint activities such as Summer of Dance, the Youth

Games and this year's national reading challenge, Circus Stars.

The majority of the activities are free although some museum exhibitions and theatre events charge an entrance fee.

Details

of all the events which take place throughout the summer holidays can

be found in special printed booklets entitled "Summer in the city" which

are being distributed in libraries and leisure centres throughout the

three boroughs."

Cllr Nickie

Aiken, cabinet member for children and young  people at Westminster

Council said: "This is a wonderful way to offer young people a huge and

varied range of activities showcasing the best that each area has to

offer. Hopefully it will mean that parents and children will be able to

experience things they have not had a chance to try before or were

unaware of in the past. Children in Westminster have always had a wide

variety of summer activities, but this means all young people will

benefit and the councils can also help reduce costs."

 

 Cllr

Helen Binmore, H&F cabinet member for children's services, said:

"The Summer in the City guide is a great way to find out what is

happening not only in your local area, but just across the border into

K&C and Westminster.

 

"Nearly all the exciting

activities are free and are open to young people from across the

boroughs. This booklet is the first example of a tri-borough publication

– not only is it saving the taxpayer money by producing one rather than

three separate guides, it is also offering children and young people

more opportunities to take part in fun, exciting and different

activities."

Councillor

Baroness Ritchie, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea's Cabinet

Member for Family and Children's Services, said: "I am delighted that

children in Kensington and Chelsea now have access to an even greater

range of opportunities this summer.  We have been offering children in

our borough an exciting summer programme for many years and our

partnership with our neighbouring boroughs means there is now even more

on offer. This is a good example of three boroughs working together to

save money and increase what's on offer for our younger residents."

 The

joint initiative follows an announcement earlier this year that the

three boroughs would look at ways to share services in order to make

back office savings.

Westminster City Council, Hammersmith &

Fulham and the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea expect combined

services to save £35 million a year by 2014/15 with around 500 jobs

going in management, back office and support roles.

Initial

proposals are being developed in four areas: adult services, children's

services, environmental services and corporate services.

The

three authorities have signed a 'Sovereignty Guarantee' to safeguard

local autonomy, responsiveness and identity. Each of the councils would

retain their own councillors and decision-making processes.

Services key to local areas, such as housing management, licensing and planning, are not being combined.