Plymouth nursery toddlers found alone by busy road

The pair escaped from Busy Bees nursery in Derriford, Plymouth

Two toddlers were found on their own near a busy road after escaping from a nursery.

Police found the children, one of whom was a three-year-old boy, on William Prance Road, Plymouth, at about 11:00 GMT on Monday.

Busy Bees nursery in Derriford said it was "devastated" to hear the pair were unsupervised near the dual carriageway and it has launched an investigation.

Neither of the children were injured, Devon and Cornwall Police confirmed.

Busy Bees owns 378 nurseries for children up to the age of five across the UK and Ireland.

'Working with authorities'

A spokesperson said: "While we are relieved that both children returned safely to the centre, this situation clearly should not have happened and we are taking the fact it did extremely seriously.

"We are devastated that this was able to happen and a thorough investigation is now under way.

"We contacted the parents of the children involved, as well as all other parents at the nursery to explain the situation and we are working with the authorities and regulators to establish the facts and we will take appropriate action where required."

The company's operations director, Anita Wilden, added: "The safety and wellbeing of all children in our care is our highest priority and we have robust policies in place to ensure situations such as this do not occur.

"We have started our investigation and we will find out how this situation happened.

"Please be assured that if there are any steps we can make to further improve our procedures we will make those changes."