The National Day Nurseries Association told Nursery World it had seen a 47 per cent increase in member closures between September 2017 and May 2018 compared to the same period the previous year.
In Stockport alone, two nurseries are due to shut at the end of this term and an additional 14 settings have raised concern about their viability over the next 12 months.
Wendy Hartley, co-founder of voluntary network Stockport Pre-school Providers, said, ‘We’ve been battling with funding for a while, but it has accelerated in the last 18 months.
‘Last April [2017], we had no increase in funding. This April, the deprivation supplement has reduced from 31p to 11p. Because of this, we predicted that settings like Bright Beginnings were going to struggle [see case study].
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