Andover nursery shuts down amid cost of living crisis

A nursery has been forced to close due to financial challenges, its owner has said.

Jennie Bailey, owner of Sprat and Winkle Day Nursery, near Andover, says a lack of funding contributed to her closing just one year after opening.

The nursery looks after 20 children in total and one parent said they felt they had "struck gold" in finding it.

A government spokesperson said £20bn had been spent on supporting families with childcare in the past five years.

Ms Bailey has worked in childcare for more than 30 years and says the early years care sector was the "worst" she has ever seen it.

Launching the village nursery in Wherwell was her dream, but one year on she is closing her doors and says she feels "disillusioned" by the industry.

Ms Bailey explained: "I feel absolutely devastated and heartbroken - for the parents, for my village, for my ladies.

"It's not the outcome any of us would have wanted, but I was getting further and further into debt and I didn't know how I was going to get out of that.

"At the end of the day it's come to a point, with the cost of living crisis, where we have to actually put our families first - you have to go where the money is and that's not in early years."

Mother Rebecca Moore said she decided not to return to work as originally planned due to the closure.

She said: "We couldn't find any nurseries in time, they are very over-subscribed around here. I feel really sad, it's such a lovely space, it's felt very personal. Now we're starting again and looking for somewhere else and it's not easy."

Fellow mother Cate Anson said: "It's just really unsettling. It was definitely a shock because it had only been open since last September and when we found it we thought we'd struck gold."

Ryan Smith said his son was under two years old and had already been to three nurseries.

"When we got the email about the closure we were gutted, in the pit of our stomach, because our son loves it so much. Trying to find the right setting, people you trust, especially when so many have closed is hard," he said.

Ms Bailey said other challenges for the early years sector included the continuing impact of the coronavirus pandemic, which she believes "decimated" the workforce, as well as recruiting enough qualified staff.

She added: "...you really cannot have a setting like this with a huge percentage of unqualified staff and that means you're paying out more and the funding doesn't cover that.

"The pay is appalling and the responsibilities and accountability you're asking these ladies to take on is absolutely huge. ...they can earn more stacking a shelf in Asda and not worry about the cans when they leave?"

In a statement, the Department for Education said: "We have spent more than £20bn over the past five years to support families with the cost of childcare.

"The number of childcare places available in England remains stable, as it has since 2015, and thousands of parents are benefitting from this support."

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