Price of needed repairs forces Redcar nursery closure

Parents have been told the nursery will close in August

A children's nursery has said it will shut because it cannot afford the cost of repairs needed to the building.

Sunny Days Child Care, in Redcar, has been in business for 46 years and has 24 children in its care.

Staff have been given their notice and parents told in a letter the nursery would close in August.

Andrea Craig, who chairs the management committee, said it needed "a miracle to survive" against an estimated £11,000 of needed repairs.

She said they paid a peppercorn rent to Redcar and Cleveland Council for the use of the building in Kirkleatham Road and had been told that, under an agreement with the local authority, the nursery was responsible for any repairs.

Mrs Craig said: "We are really struggling.

"The roof has been leaking and has damaged the floor and some of the heating is not working - we just can't afford to pay for the repairs.

"The [state of the] building has brought everything to a head, but we have been losing money anyhow since the Covid-19 pandemic."

Staff said they were "struggling" to keep on top of needed repairs

The council told the Local Democracy Reporting Service it had been "exploring all the options available" to try and keep the nursery open.

While Mrs Craig said external grant funding was one avenue to pursue, she felt it would be difficult to achieve success as money was needed immediately.

She said: "You won't get a grant for something that you've already done and the building needs repairs now."

Nursery manager Debbie Clews added: "It's just not a quick fix thing, there could be other problems were we to continue."

The letter circulated to parents said that, if unable to cover the estimated cost of repairs, it was with "great sadness and regret" that the nursery would shut.

It added the nursery only had "sufficient funding for making our loyal staff redundant" and to cover the bills for running costs until its closure.