Fight goes on to save Hetton-le-Hole Nursery School as consultation launched by Sunderland City Council

Hetton-le-Hole Nursery School is facing closure.

The local authority-maintained nursery offers both daycare and nursery provision for 0-5-year-olds.

In recent years, the nursery’s budget deficit has worsened and is projected to be more than £170,000 at the close of the 2020/21 financial year.

By the end of the 2022/23 financial year, the deficit is expected to increase to more than £200,000.

Despite staffing re-structures and increased efforts to recruit additional children, council chiefs have said that the ongoing, increasing deficit budget demonstrates the setting is “unsustainable in the long-term.”

Nursery staff, parents and Hetton Town Council have previously said they are determined to fight the proposals, noting the nursery’s ‘outstanding’ provision and its history within the community.

Sunderland City Council have now launched a public consultation on the matter which will run until February 14 2021.

If the proposal proceeds further, the city council is expected to set out its final proposal in late February and publish a statutory notice, followed by a further four-week ‘representation period.’

And if a final decision is made to discontinue provision, Hetton-le-Hole Nursery School is expected to close from September 1, 2021.

A statement on the council’s consultation website reads: “As a maintained nursery school provision, Hetton-le-Hole Nursery is subject to statutory requirements relating to staffing and levels of provision that are not required of other non-maintained early years settings, such as private nursery providers and childminders.

“In addition, nursery schools do not benefit from the economies of scales that are received by delivering nursery classes within a mainstream school setting.

“In recent years these requirements have placed additional pressures on all nursery schools but, Hetton-le-Hole Nursery in [particular] has faced significant financial challenges.

“The nursery management has endeavoured to improve the nursery’s financial position in recent years through staffing re-structures and increased efforts to recruit additional children to the nursery.

“However, despite these efforts, the levels of funding generated through pupil recruitment and the financial savings made by the nursery through efficiencies have not been enough to meet the costs required to provide the provision.

“The nursery remains financially vulnerable.”

The statement goes on to say: “Sunderland Council considers that the nursery’s ongoing, increasing deficit budget demonstrates the setting is unsustainable in the long-term and has therefore put forward a proposal to close the nursery.

“The council is also proposing the implementation of an alternative long-term sustainable nursery provision at the new Hetton Primary School to ensure early years provision continues to be delivered in the Hetton ward.”

The Hetton Primary School rebuild is expected to be completed for a September 2022 opening and includes proposals for early years provision for two, three and four-year-olds.

Subject to the outcome of any proposal to close Hetton-le-Hole Nursery School, it is proposed that the new planned early years provision would open within the existing primary school building in September 2021.

The council states this will ensure any children displaced from Hetton-le-Hole Nursery School can access alternative local places and“will ensure places can be offered to any families seeking a new early years place during the 2021/22 academic year.”

If the nursery closure proposal is scrapped following consultation, the proposed new early years provision at Hetton Primary School will open in 2022, as originally planned.

The consultation statement and online survey on the proposed closure of Hetton-le-Hole Nursery School can be accessed online here: https://sunderland-consult.objective.co.uk

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