Kids Planet and Happy Days add nurseries
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
UK nursery groups are continuing their expansion plans, with Kids Planet and Happy Days continuing to grow.
Kids Planet has bought its 23rd setting and secured funding to help double its number of nurseries in the next five years.
The group bought the former Newlands Nursery School, set in a detached three-storey property, to offer places for up to 72 children in Preston, Lancashire. The sale was completed by business property adviser, Christie & Co.
Since the initial £10m investment secured by the group from Business Growth Fund (BGF) in 2016, the family-owned business has expanded from 17 to 23 sites across the north of England.
Kids Planet, which ranked as the 13th largest chain in the country last year, has now received a further £6.5m investment from BGF as the group plans to double the number of settings it owns over the coming five years.
The group has a number of new settings already in the pipeline, including sites in central Manchester, Great Sankey, Hoylake and Ellenbrook.
Clare Roberts, chief executive of Kids Planet, said, ‘We are thrilled to add Newlands as the 23rd nursery to our group. We share the same ethos in terms of delivering high quality childcare and look forward to building on the already outstanding facilities.’
Last year, the group was awarded the top spot in the Nursery World quality league table, with 79 per cent of its settings receiving an Outstanding rating from Ofsted.
Happy Days works on new settings
Nursery group Happy Days is also planning a new setting to open later this year.
Swindon Happy Days will offer places to 100 children and employ up to 45 members of staff in Abbey Meads village in Swindon when it opens in June 2018.
The setting will be open from 7am to 7pm, 51 weeks a year, for children aged between 12 weeks and five years.
Happy Days has worked with Timotay Playscapes to develop its outside space, which will feature planting beds, a water stream with recirculating manual pump, a sandpit, a variety of surfaces for play and a roleplay petrol pump.
The group, which now has 19 settings, has been on the expansion trail in recent years, opening new settings in Bristol, Thornbury and Poole. A 70-place nursery in Bath and 81-place setting in Weston-super-Mare are also due to open in the next year.
Kevin Higgs, development director at Happy Days, said, ‘This is an exciting time to be in business as we have a quality product and we are pushing out of Cornwall and Devon to the wider South West. The business is 25 years old and we are driving expansion through the right type of properties.’
Happy Days was 19th largest chain in the UK last year, and came fourth in the Nursery World quality league table, with all of its settings receiving a Good or Outstanding rating from Ofsted.
