The group is opening a third setting in Tredworth, Gloucester in January after its second nursery, which opened in March, filled its 100-place capacity in under six months.
The first Secret Garden Nursery setting, Eastgate, which was opened in 2014, is also full, with 100 registered places and over 160 children on roll.
The second site, built in a former public house in Tuffley, Gloucester, is set within almost an acre of land and features a double decker soft play bus and an outdoor classroom.
The new Tredworth setting will be located in a former hotel building and will offer a large garden and all-weather play area for children.
The group offers funded places with no extra charges, and has promised not to introduce any additional fees before the next Government review. It also pays for an annual bus trip for all the children to go to a farm or park and to a pantomime at Christmas.
Owner Charles Perkins said, ‘We have made a commitment to our parents to not introduce any additional fees for funded places before the next Government review, and won't do so going forward as long as the rise is reasonable to the increase in industry cost increases.
‘Given that we only started at the height of the recent recession, we were born in a time when we knew our parents were experiencing hard times. We always understood they could not afford to pay more than they must, and that if we tried to charge too much they would go elsewhere.
‘We have taken the view that we want to be full and therefore have aimed to price competitively as well as having the best facilities locally. We added more value for parents by giving free lunches, free annual school trips and trips to the theatre, and parents appreciate these things while expecting and receiving great staff, clean facilities and so on.’
The group, which currently employs 50 members of staff, plans to look for further expansion opportunities after opening its new setting in in the New Year.
Mr Perkins added, ‘We offer something more than most are able to offer, with very large outdoor spaces which have been thoughtfully developed to give the wow factor. We have also kept the start-up costs low by buying much of our equipment second hand on eBay at a fraction of the cost of buying new.
‘We aimed to be a large setting from the start, giving us the ability to handle the administrative side of the business which has certainly grown in cost. Given our size we are also able to rearrange the different rooms to accommodate the vagaries of fluctuations in numbers in different age groups, which I am sure smaller settings would struggle to do.’
