Closure of Nursery
Andi Rickard
May 2009
Parents in Cannington are dismayed that Bridgwater College has decided to to close Squirrels Nursery from July this year.
Squirrels Nursery started life over 20 years ago as a Montessori School and has been in the same spot ever since. The College says that they will offer places for all the children at the Bridgwater Children's Centre but this is on the east side of the town and not practically accessible to parents working in West Somerset.
The following letter was sent to local MP, Ian Liddell-Grainger, to ask for his support.
"The former Somerset College of Agriculture and Horticulture was merged with (absorbed by) Bridgwater College in 2004 and became the Cannington Centre for Land Based Studies.Squirrels Nursery is a full-time childcare centre situated in a lovely location next to the sports field on the Cannington Centre campus and open to 26 children aged between 1 and 5 years. It started life over 20 years ago as a Montessori School and has been in the same spot ever since. In 2006 the Nursery was closed for a few months while extensive refurbishment of the building was carried out and the outside garden area was extended considerably.Now, we parents have been notified by Bridgwater College that they plan to close down the nursery from July 31st this year and we are, understandably I think, horrified and dismayed. The reasons given in our letter were 1. "the Elliott building which has served us well for several years is in need of extensive refurbishment" and 2. "the numbers of children attending the centre has dropped and the nursery is now running on low occupancy". We assume that the true reason is either that someone has decided that budget cuts need to be made somewhere and rural childcare is an easy target or that the site of the nursery has been earmarked for another use (although I admit this is currently based on hearsay). Whatever the reason, I think it is a very shortsighted decision. Squirrels Nursery provides essential childcare facilities for parents of pre-school aged children living and working in the west of Somerset. There are only five other nurseries operating on a full time basis between Bridgwater town centre and Watchet: of these only two accept children under the age of 2 years and all have very few vacancies available. The College say that they will offer places for all the children at the Bridgwater Children's Centre but this is on the east side of the town and not practically accessible to parents working in West Somerset. Also, the Bridgwater Centre will not accept those children who are due to start Primary School in September (numbering 8). It is true that the Nursery is running at just over 2/3 occupancy at the moment but this is in part due to the high number of leavers to school last September (18), partly due to the new admissions policy which specifies a minimum attendance of 15 hours per week and partly due to an absolute absence of any apparent marketing whatsoever. This year only 8 children are due to leave and there are more than this on the waiting list to replace them. With the planned expansion of Hinkley Point power station we would expect the demand for local childcare facilities to increase considerably in the next few years. The College Principal is holding a meeting in the main hall at the Cannington Centre at 7pm on Thursday 14th May "if (we) require any further information or have any questions.." and we are canvassing as many people as possible to attend."
