SURE Start campaigners are hoping to stage the biggest protest in Hampshire history this week as they battle planned children’s centre closures.

Catherine Ovenden is leading a march through Winchester on Friday and will plea with Hampshire County Council to scrap proposed cuts.

The restructure would see 43 children’s centres closed across the county, leaving 11 regional hubs.

Campaigners will gather outside the council’s headquarters at 9.30am while Ms Ovenden makes a deputation to full council.

From 10.30am the group will march down the High Street to King Alfred’s statue.

Although dozens have mounted protests at local centres already, it will take more than 1,000 to eclipse recent demonstrations.

Around 1,100 marched through Winchester in 2014 to oppose the city council’s development plans, while the biggest single demonstration against the M3 extension in the 1990s involved 500.

A successful Echo campaign against the closure of Southampton’s children’s heart unit in 2011 attracted mostly online support, with a quarter of a million petition signatures, and violent poll tax demonstrations in the early 1990s rarely attracted huge crowds.

Next week’s demonstration comes after Ms Ovenden’s plea to the Queen received a formal response.

The mum-of-two wrote to Buckingham Palace in March to oppose council tax cash being spent on a royal street party, linking the issue to her Sure Start campaign.

Her Majesty declined to answer personally, but aides passed the letter to the government for a response.

Mike Shaughnessy, of the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), said: “The government recognises the important role that councils play in helping to provide local services, like Sure Start centres.

"However, as you acknowledge, all of government has had to make some tough decisions to avoid putting our deficit reduction programme at risk, and with councils accounting for a quarter of all public spending, they need to continue playing their part in tackling the deficit.

"Hampshire, like all councils, needs to find savings whilst protecting local services.”

The future of the centres will be decided by Cllr Keith Mans, executive member for children’s services, on July 1.

Ms Ovenden said: “Children’s centres remaining local and universally accessed by communities is a huge local priority.

"So many people have now spoken out very publicly and filled in the consultation documents about the importance of community-based children’s centres.

“I really hope that Hampshire County Council will be able to use their financial freedom to be flexible in their plans for the future of our centres.”