If a small nursery opened (14 children) by you how would you feel?

[totallystuck]

I'm just trying to gauge if IABU or if my neighbours ABU?

Thanks.

The nursery my DC went to was on a residential street in a very highly occupied part of London. Infact there are 2 nurseries on the same street. Parking for drop off and pick up was a bit of a mare for parents, but it only took a few minutes and I don't remember any problems with residents. Maybe they had all gone to work?

The street you are on looks completely empty compared to where our nursery was!

And FWIW, I love to hear the sound of children playing. And it would be quiet in the evenings and at weekends.

You sound more like a childminders than a nursery! And children need to be outside to "let off steam"! Doubling your numbers when residents are already marky doesn't sound like a recipe for success somehow!

I wouldn't expand.
The more children you have the more staff you need.
The ratio is very strict as you will know. With fourteen children it is more of an headache, especially if you get 'bad' staff who don't fit your current situation.
The minimum wage, what is it £6,20 and how many holidays do they get, not mentioning the pension contributions you have to now submit.
How many breaks do they need ? What about cover for these times.

More children is not always more money. If I was you, I would just keep it the way it is.

We're a husband and wife childminding team with up to 10 children here, 6 are under 5.

Our neighbours are mainly older and are at home all day. We've never had a problem. They insist they love to hear the children play and it livens the place up. I once tried apologising for the noise and got a blank look "But that's what children do dear!"
One used to childmind herself and sometimes pops over with a cake she's made for them.
No parking problems that I'm aware of - parents aren't there that long anyway.

Having applied for and obtained a similar category of planning. Your most serious issue is the highways concern of the turning in the road. If you do not overcome this you will not get permission. A highway concern such as this has the power to veto an application.

I don't understand why some mums will have to give up work. You've got permission for 7 children - presumably you don't have the other 7 there yet, if it's in the planning stage, so how will their parents have to give up work? Or have you taken bookings based on thinking you would get permission, and it's now gone wrong?

Ah, I've just re-read - it's specific children you want to cater for.

Would be fine by me. Considering i have the most awful noisy neighbours that wake us up constantly having a nursery next to me would be lovely, not to mention peaceful at night.

I think you can choose to live in a quiet place in terms of not being on a busy road, buying a detached house or being on an isolated track half way up a mountain.

However, there is no such thing as a 'quiet street' in terms of the neighbour's activities unless you live in a retirement community.

My old house had a childminders backing on to our garden and the noise of them playing drove me round the bend. I'm not normally cummudegonly, but when I've spent the day dealing with other peoples' children, I didn't want to hear more other peoples' children when I'd gone into my garden to relax.

The main noise that bothered me was the ride-on toys grinding on the brick paving. General play noise wasn't so bad. The other bother was the minder's screechy voice, "Oh Louie, don't do that, no Louie, I said, LOUIE!"

I think it made me more twitchy because I couldn't tell Louie off myself

The reason the mums may have to stop working is because the increase in numbers is for siblings. There are (in the parents opinion) no good childcare options near us and certainly none that could take both children.

The highways agency don't have a problem with the road.

I also don't do this Job to make a shed load of money, so long as I can pay my bills I'm good. If I wanted to make loads of money I'd have stick with my former legal career which I hated.

I was thinking a twitter campaign would help us find an alternative venue, sorry that wasn't clear! Don't think you can change the councils mind once they have decided?

This issue seems to be really mixed, I totally understand about shift workers and people not wanting their drives blocked. We do have a term in our contracts saying that if you block drives we can terminate the contract.

I don't know what we could do to help shift workers though? Can shift workers help me please? Is it the noise of cars and children that would mainly affect you?

You can appeal the Council's decision, yes. The appeal goes to a government planning inspector.

Noise isn't restricted by the activities being 'educational'. 7 children all of preschool age is a total different noise pattern to that produced by a family.

If people chose th area because they wanted to live in an area with normal, residential levels of noise, I can see why they'd object.

The parking sounds insufficient. Just look at the threads on MN about selfish school/nursery run parking to see a whole new definition of inconsiderate.

I think you might be better of finding premises that are not in a residential area,

I've just dropped DD off at her childcare - a childminding team as described in some of the posts above (6 preschoolers plus wrap around school children) and must say the street there is much more congested than the OP's.

Obviously the residents may think differently but I don't think we create too much of a nuisance at drop off time. The childminders park on the drive and there is almost always a space directly outside the property. There are rarely more than 2 parents dropping off together. It helps that our childminder doesn't really do long handovers I suppose. I am conscious of the parking issue and so would never obstruct a drive and am always polite and friendly to the neighbours if I see them.

It's a tough one. I think it would depend on the size of the property and how considerate you are OP. It's probably not ideal to live next door to a childcare setting but on the other there is a need for good quality childcare. I'm not sure where all these purpose built facilities with ample parking are.

The highways agency wouldn't have a problem with the road unless its a motorway or trunk road its outside their juristiction. You need the opinion of the local council.

"restricted to 7 in the garden at a time for educational purposes, ie. not letting off stream," Running around jumping and shouting is called 'learning through play'. Improving gross motor skills, balance and spatial awareness at speed. It is educational. How is it possible for you to not know how important it is?

The noise, the parking...I think you need to move for everybody's sake.

It wouldn't annoy me. But then we dont' have a car, so no parking issues.
I work right next to my DDs nursery and although there are children playing outside, I only hear it when I'm outside and even then it's not intrusive. They have free play indoors and outside so come and go as they please, so less of the "running around like headless chickens" as they are active all day long. They are just pottering around playing games outside, no screaming or shouting.

A bunch of students have moved in next door to us and I'm not happy about that as it might mean late night parties and doors slamming. That would annoy me far more than a nursery next door. I work 4 days a week so I am out of the house during the day and it's the night time I need quiet time.
A lot of families can be very noisy to live next to, I can't understand why a nursery can be more annoying than this?

I wouldnt be happy of I already owned my home and then the Nursery started up, 14 families doing drop off and pick up is a lot of extra traffic for a residential street.
I would certainly be pissed off if it was next door to me, the amount of noise would be unacceptable. But surely they would need planning permission for change of status to business premises which you could have contested?

If it was a childminder setting in a house then surely they would still be expected to follow noise levels set by envirmental health.

Setting up a 'tweet storm' and getting all aggressive over it is only going to make relations with your neighbours worse and could end up making this a difficult legal matter. Try be mature.

You need to make the point to the paper that the increase would be mostly siblings and staff children, so that wouldn't cause a big increase in parking issues - if someone is dropping off one child already, they aren't suddenly going to turn up in two cars to drop off both their children.

Your neighbours sound miserable though. And loving the OP who suggested setting up shop on an industrial estate! Yes, I'm sure parents would love their children to be surrounded by industrial processes and HGVs

I agree with poster above - I wouldn't go down the twitter route. I think this would only antagonise your neighbours. A nursery where I used to live wanted to expand. This was also in a residential area and the whole issue became rather heated on a local forum and the owners did not do themselves any favours.

Just to clarify:

There is an existing nursery with 7 children
You want to go up to 14 to accommodate siblings and the children of staff

Neither of these is going to create extra traffic, surely?