YMCA opens ninth nursery

The new £1.5 million purpose-built Woolston Nursery, based at Southampton’s new riverside housing development Centenary Quay, opened last week.

The 107-place nursery has a large outdoor area with a sandpit and a water feature, with plans to create a vegetable patch.

Nursery manager Michaela Oscroft said,  ‘Accessible and quality childcare is essential for families and we are excited to be able to expand our childcare services to Centenary Quay and take part in the regeneration of Woolston.’

Chris Hand, chief executive of YMCA Fairthorne Group, said, 'We look forward to working with the local community in Woolston and Centenary Quay to develop this facility and others too. I know this part of the city really well and I am delighted that YMCA has made the investment to offer state-of-the-art childcare facilities, and it is particularly exciting to be able to ask some of our most talented staff members to lead on this project.'

The setting in Woolston is the charity’s eighth nursery. The group’s other nurseries are in Portsea and Whale Island in Portsmouth, Newport and Shanklin in the Isle of Wight, Gosport, Fairthorne in Hampshire and Townhill and Weston in Southampton.

The YMCA Little Whale Nursery is based on the HMS Excellent’s naval headquarters and rated outstanding by Ofsted.

The group's flagship nursery is based at the charity's head office at Fairthorne Manor, set in 111 acres just outside Southampton (pictured below).

Including the new nursery, in total the YMCA’s nurseries offer around 623 childcare places, employing approximately 150 staff.

The YMCA Fairthorne Group also operates a pre-school in Southampton, 'daycamps' (holiday clubs) , after-school clubs and other support services for families across the South of England.

The charity has plans to open a new pre-school in Winchester in January 2015.