A POPULAR playgroup project for the children of homeless parents faces the axe after the local health authority pulled the plug on funding.

The Temporary Accommodated Parents Play Project, or TAPP, will have to close down in June unless new funding can be found.

Angry parents are now organising a petition calling on Enfield and Haringey Health Authority to renew funding and they are calling on Southgate MP Stephen Twigg to back their campaign.

TAPP holds twice-weekly sessions in Trinity-at-Bowes Methodist Church Hall, Palmers Green, and at Edmonton Green Library.

About 20 to 30 children aged between two and five, plus their parents, attend each session and more are held in hostel accommodation across Enfield.

The project is also considering applying to become a charity so it can seek funds from the community and the National Lottery.

But parents fear this would still leave TAPP with an insecure future, and would mean the project would lose highly-trained staff provided by health and social services.

Each session is currently attended by a qualified playleader, health visitor and nursery nurse.

The parents are also planning to approach Southgate MP Stephen Twigg to enlist his support.

Meanwhile Hazel Brown, project coordinator and a health visitor, is working on plans to turn TAPP into a charitable organisation.

She is appealing to anyone who would be interested in forming a management committee to keep TAPP alive as a voluntary organisation to contact her.

She said the project played a vital role in preventing emotional and behavioural problems in children who have to cope with the insecurity of homelessness.

If children are living in very cramped accommodation and have no room to play and express themselves, it can have a dramatic effect on their emotional development, she said.

And because homeless families are always moving around they may not be able to use the playgroup facilities that children in permanent homes use. TAPP helps to solve this problem.

A spokeswoman for Enfield and Haringey Health Authority said the authority regretted having to stop funding, but cash restrictions had made the decision unavoidable.

She said: Its absolutely no reflection on the service itself, which has been excellent.

Unfortunately we only have a set amount of money for projects like these.

Anyone who thinks they can help the project survive should contact Ms Brown on 361 6617.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.