PLANS to offer free breakfasts to primary school pupils in Hull have been given the go-ahead.
The £150,000 programme will see a network of breakfast clubs being set up at participating schools.
Aimed at encouraging children to eat more healthy food, it will be a joint initiative between Hull City Council and the Goodwin Development Trust.
The Hull-based social enterprise is expected to provide volunteers to run the clubs as well as transport to ferry food around the city.
As exclusively revealed by the Mail last week, it is hoped the first clubs will be up and running by the autumn term.
Support for the programme was confirmed yesterday by the new-look Hull Health and Well-Being Board – a partnership between the city council and the Hull Clinical Commissioning Group.
Board chairman Councillor Colin Inglis said: "It will still be up to schools if they want to take part.
"We are not going to force this on anyone who doesn't want to be involved but we believe it is the right thing to do.
"Research carried out here in Hull and elsewhere has shown that children who start the day with a healthy breakfast have better concentration levels through the rest of the day.
"At the moment too many primary-age children in Hull are arriving in school without having eaten anything for breakfast. That needs to be addressed."
The new-look breakfast clubs come six years after the end of a trial involving free lunchtime meals, breakfasts and healthy fruit snacks in Hull primary schools.
The Eat Well Do Well pilot was also enthusiastically backed by Cllr Inglis when he was leader of the city council.
However, it was discontinued by the Liberal Democrats after they gained political control at the Guildhall.
They claimed the cost of subsidising the free meals could not be justified and argued that parents should be given a choice whether they wanted to provide packed lunches for their own children.
The new breakfast club project is one of 11 being supported by the board as part of a £628,000 programme of public health initiatives over the next 12 months. Others include:
Free swimming sessions for young and elderly people at council- run pools.
A £20,000 scheme aimed at supporting breast-feeding mothers.
A community-based growing and cooking project targeted at deprived areas of the city.
Free or discounted admission to council-run leisure centres for "hard to reach" groups.
Music therapy for people with mental health problems.
The programme will also fund the post of a health worker who is expected to become a direct point of contact for just over 1,000 so-called "priority families" across the city who have been identified as having multiple inter-related problems.
Cllr Inglis said he hoped more funding would become available for other projects soon.
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