Nursery groups are starting to expand again after a period of stagnation in the sector.
Although low occupancy levels continue to be of concern for some nurseries, there appears to be a revival in fortunes with new openings for the larger chains.
By the end of this month, Places for Children, a not-for-profit company with social objectives, will have 12 nurseries open offering 775 childcare places.
Since the winter issue of Nursery Chains (November 2006) the group has added seven more settings and 250 childcare places.
Two nurseries are partnerships with children's centres in Barking and Dagenham, Essex, and another is a 49-place children's centre in Hounslow, Middlesex.
Managing director Carol Jenkins said, 'The reason we've chosen management contracts rather than organic growth alone is that it reduces the risk for us in building up the company.'
Places for Children is also expanding alongside parent company Places for People, one of the UK's largest housing and regeneration agencies.
Ms Jenkins said that the plan until 2010 is continued expansion via three different routes: opening its own nurseries, management contracts with local authorities to run childcare at children's centres, and new-build nurseries alongside Places for People's major development sites in England and Scotland.
Another chain, Imagine Co-operative Childcare, has opened a 1.5m co-operative nursery at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford in partnership with the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust. The 96-place nursery is in a brand new building at the hospital's Headington site on a 15-year lease with Imagine.
It is the group's first workplace nursery but Haydn Lunn, strategic director for Imagine, said the group was pursuing further partnerships with NHS Trusts.
He said, 'We're a not-for-profit organisation and it sits easier [for NHS Trusts] to be dealing with the Co-op. We're very much part of the local community.'
Vickie Holcroft, project director at Oxford Radcliffe Hospital, said, 'What attracted us to the co-operative was how their ethos is in close line with the Trust.'
In Ireland, too, the childcare business is booming with the growth of one of the country's largest private providers.
Giraffe Childcare and Early Learning Centres is opening three more nurseries in the Greater Dublin area this summer, with 19 settings due to be open by the end of the year. There are also plans for eight more nurseries in 2008.
Joint managing director Simon Dowling said, 'There is tremendous potential for growth in Ireland at the moment. We're probably where the UK was ten years ago.' Each Giraffe nursery typically offers 80-100 childcare places, with occupancy running at 85 to 90 per cent.
