The fight to keep a disabled children's services centre met further struggles this week.

The centre faces closure as the Herts Valleys Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) are required to find £45 million in savings, and the service costs £600,000 a year to run.

At a scrutiny panel of Hertfordshire County Council on Wednesday, members and families heard that a further extension of the services seemed unlikely.

At a full council meeting in July, the service was extended to run until January 31, 2018 instead of October 31.

This initial push-back was to make sure that all children were given a full assessment before the centre closed down.

All assessments are currently predicted to be finished by September 21. but initially they were expected to be completed by the end of July.

Parents have been working together on a proposal to keep the centre open by providing 20 per cent of the funding, but this would rely on the council and the CCG paying the rest.

There are another three centres in the county, but all would have to be adapted in order for the children to attend.

Teresa Heritage, Cabinet Member for Children’s Services at Hertfordshire County Council, said: “We welcome the scrutiny of the decisions taken by us and we continue to keep the welfare of the children at the forefront of our planning.

"We await formal notification of the conclusions and recommendations from the scrutiny committee and will review those.

"We absolutely see it as a priority to continue updating the families and carers with the latest developments.”

Lib Dem opposition spokesperson for children's services Mark Watkin said: “There has been a failure on all sides and the lives of these families have been devastated by the CCG’s decision. Many are at their wits end.

"The proposal by the families provides a breathing space and is the only short term hope of stopping a disaster turning into a tragedy.

"I and my colleagues will do all we can to get this proposal adopted as the way forward.

"The door is not totally closed, but is still only just ajar."