London campus nursery set to close
Catherine Gaunt
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
The nursery at Goldsmiths College, University of London, at New Cross is the latest campus nursery earmarked for closure, after parents were told last month that it would shut in September.
The university says the 23-place setting, which provides childcare for staff and students, has been operating at a loss of £70,000 a year and was also subsidised by a further £80,000 once bills, overheads and staff costs were taken into account.
It says there is no other suitable building on campus and a new building would be unaffordable.
John Wadsworth, a senior lecturer in education, has proposed that prefabricated buildings could be set up on the campus, which would enable the nursery to expand the number of places it offers and open it up to parents in the local community.
Campaigners to save the nursery claim that the £70,000 a year subsidy figure is misleading.
Mr Wadsworth said that a working group set up to review the cost of running the nursery had found that around half this subsidy was due to mismanagement caused by the university's failed attempt to find another provider to run the setting, as proposed in 2008.
He added that uncertainty about the nursery's fate had had the knock-on effect of staff leaving, leading to increased costs in employing agency staff.
'The working group claim that the additional expense has come from the failure of the management to outsource the nursery. They haven't really explored the options. The working group came up with proposals to make the nursery cost-neutral, but they were dismissed by the senior management team,' said Mr Wadsworth.
Marie-Eloise Hurley, a single mother due to start the final year of a degree, said she would have to abandon her course if the nursery closed. Her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter has been attending since she was nine months old.
Ms Hurley said, 'As a campus nursery there is more flexibility with childcare and they are understanding about student needs. It's a mission impossible to find other childcare because there is a shortage of childcare places and huge waiting lists. I'm looking at a no nursery, no degree situation.'
The university said it was carrying out a childcare support review.
