The nursery group, which currently has 11 sites around Surrey, Kent and London, plans to double in size by 2023.
All Fennies settings remained open to the children of key workers and vulnerable families throughout lockdown. Chief executive and co-founder Steven Fenn believes this has enabled the expansion plans, which were in place before the pandemic, to ‘stay on track’.
‘We have got two more sites opening this year and are looking to expand aggressively next year,’ said Mr Fenn.
He added, ‘It is too early to say exactly how things will pan out, but from September our occupancy has pretty much recovered to back where it was pre-pandemic. The main impact has been those months where we could not grow occupancy because of being closed and people being uncertain with what is going to happen. There are lots of people waiting until schools go back before deciding what they will do with younger siblings.’
Despite the current trend of home working, the nursery group will not be changing its model of opening nurseries near to popular commuter transport links with under an hour commute into central London, with plans now to expand to other commuter areas including north of the River Thames. Mr Fenn believes there will be a ‘gradual shift’ back to a mix of workplace and home working. With a focus on caring for children of double income working parents, there are no plans to open settings in areas of disadvantage.
Research from independent early years analysts Ceeda shows that summer nursery occupancy stands at 48 per cent for returning parents, with some nurseries facing possible closure. Mr Fenn believes parents are concerned about the possibility of a second spike in coronavirus cases and some new parents lack confidence in registering for childcare places at the moment.
In contrast to the national picture, Fennies’ current occupancy rate for returning parents is 96 per cent. Sites remain open, with an average of 20 per cent occupancy, which enabled the nursery group to care for 12 per cent more places for vulnerable and key worker children from local nurseries that closed during lockdown. Ninety per cent of those children have continued to attend the nursery group.
Rather than acquiring struggling or competitor nurseries, Fennies, which was founded in 1992, has a model of developing new nursery sites. These are mainly conversions, including schools, churches and a warehouse, although some are new builds.
