A group of mothers has promised they “will never give up the fight” to get a baby clinic at their local health centre.

East Barnet Health Centre shut down in June 2014 for refurbishment and reopened later without its long-lived mother and baby clinic, which was run by NHS health visitors on the site for twenty years.

Charlotte Gosling, who took her four-year-old son Jaydon to the clinic when he was younger, has started an online petition to the NHS asking for the centre to reopen a clinic, which has almost 300 signatures.

She said: “The clinic was a vital part of the early stages for so many parents with young babies – our relationships with the health visitors made us feel safe and cared for.

“We were guided through those important early stages by staff who were experts, understanding and based locally.

“So many new parents are missing out on this service, myself included with my one-year-old Isabelle, so we need the NHS needs to know we will never give up the fight to restore a clinic in East Barnet.”

Since the closure, families have had to take their new-born children to the Vale Drive clinic in High Barnet, which is a considerably more difficult journey by car or public transport from East Barnet.

READ MORE: East Barnet Health Centre reopens without mother and baby clinic, hit by petition from local mums signed 200 times

The oversubscribed clinic is blighted with overcrowding and strained demand reminiscent of a “third world clinic”, according to Nia Panayiotopoulos, another mother supporting the petition.

She said: “After the long, expensive journey to get there it’s crowded with mothers needing help and most can’t be tended to in time.

“Once the queue overspilled into the family planning clinic, which is supposed to be private for patients in there.”

The petition has the support of East Barnet councillors Philip Cohen and Laurie Williams as well as health visitors who used to staff the old clinic before June 2014.

Anna Weldhen, a retired health visitor who worked in East Barnet, said: “Not having this clinic in East Barnet means a lot of services which were once centralised have been dispersed around the borough.

“It has been more than a year now – the NHS needs to pull their socks up and figure out how to get the clinic back, we have mothers in need.”

The NHS Central London Community Healthcare (CLCH) trust said the delayed restoration is due to problems with lease arrangements at the East Barnet Road site.

Divisional director for children’s services at CLCH Janet Lewis, said: “We have every intention of reopening the baby clinic at East Barnet Health Centre as soon as we can.

“We understand the frustrations of local families and are sorry about the delays.

“We are discussing with Barnet Clinical Commissioning Group and NHS Property Services how we can get the leasing arrangements approved in line with national policy so that we can move services back into the centre.”

The petition to reopen mother and baby clinic services in East Barnet can be signed here.