Nursery closure is held off

More than 100 parents, staff and children marched from Bright Startnursery to a full council meeting on 18 December to debate the council'splan to close the nursery and present the petition.

The Conservative-led council is proposing closing the nursery in Aprilto save 87,000 a year (News, 10 November). Parents and staff haveboth submitted business cases with plans showing how the nursery couldbe profitable.

The nursery has the support of Labour, Liberal Democrat and Greencouncillors, who backed a motion by Green councillor Lizzie Deane tostop the consultation about closure and form a working group to look athow the nursery could be kept open and be sustainable.

At the meeting, Conservative council leader Mary Mears proposed that 'inthe spirit of the Localism Bill' there should be a new consultation onwhether Bright Start could be run as a community nursery by a consortiumof staff and parents. She said, 'This is the only nursery in the citywhich receives such a subsidy, and we don't feel that it is a fair orsustainable solution. It is not fair on the vast majority of parentswhose children attend nurseries which aren't subsidised, or fair on thecouncil taxpayer.'

But parents want the nursery to remain council-run.

Presenting the petition, Jenny Statham, the mother of a two-year-old atBright Start and a council employee, said, 'My family and families Irepresent will face great difficulty if Bright Start is closed. In ourcase we have no nursery accessible to us that can offer all of the dayswe need to work and support our family. Our choices are to cobbletogether childcare using different nurseries each day or reassess ourability to work full-time.'

Dave Jones, Unison representative for Brighton and Hove, who works atBright Start, said, 'Our campaign included everybody from parents whovoted Tory last May to Socialist Worker party members.'

A detailed report on the future of the nursery will now be brought tothe Children and Young People cabinet member meeting on 17 January.