Nursery World - UK nursery market 'slower to recover' from pandemic than other EU countries

Countries whose governments subsidise a higher proportion of childcare than the UK are doing better boosting occupancy to pre-lockdown occupancy levels, a panel of experts heard this week.

The Old Station Nursery Group is now a subsidiary of French operator La Maison Bleue

Fatima Essoufi, head of mergers and acquisitions at La Maison Bleue, which has 30 nurseries in UK as well as over 300 nurseries in France, Switzerland and Luxembourg, said that ‘countries where there is a higher proportion of public funding – France with two thirds and Luxembourg with 80% [of funding coming from government subsidies] - are countries which have seen a quicker recovery. We are almost almost back to pre-Covid levels in France and the same in Luxembourg.’

Speaking at an early education and childcare webinar hosted by LaingBuisson, Ms Essoufi said that in other countries with less funding – Switzerland and the UK – there had been a shift towards parents looking for ‘nurseries which are closer to home as opposed to closer to the office, more demand for sessions across the week and cancellations of nursery places in places where parents lost their job’ the latter being mainly low to middle income families.

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