Westfield Nursery School, which has operated from the flats for 53 years, is the third Edinburgh maintained setting in the past two weeks to be told it must close, after the council revealed plans to shut High School Yards and Princess Elizabeth Nurseries and save £200,000 a year.
Labour leader Andrew Burns accused the council of using health and safety fears to close Westfield Nursery as a 'smokescreen' for a financial decision.
He wrote on this blog, 'It's being closed because the Lib-Dem/SNP Budget in February 2010 took £302,000 out of nursery education - not because of health and safety.
Former Lord Provost of Edinburgh Eric Milligan, who attended the nursery in the 1950s, said, 'This decision stinks because it circumvents any need for consultation, and you don't have to have a suspicious mind to see the convenience of that. It got a good HMI report in the past year and during its life the only change in safety has been the rules.'
