Scottish Borders Council attempting to quietly close nurseries without parent engagement - propsal over the Easter break

[ScottishBordersLassie]

Has anyone heard about this?

There's a Council meeting happening on Tuesday 15th April (next week) where they have 20 minutes on the agenda to discuss the proposals to start closing ("mothball") scores of nurseries!

Here are the official Council papers quietly published online yesterday: https://scottishborders.moderngov.co.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=161&MId=7202

But parents who have open applications at all these school-located nurseries haven't been told about it - the last update was that they were taking their usual approach to nursery provision and an update would be coming in due course.
They haven't actually told parents with children affected officially at all.

It affects "six - Channelkirk in Oxton, Cockburnspath, Ednam in Kelso, Walkerburn, Westruther and Yetholm" according to the BBC coverage on it here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgnn9ge5d1o

The proposals affect seven nurseries not scores. All of which are currently operating at half capacity or less. Council are having to look to save money.

And our council tax has just gone up by 10 percent, it's only two miles from walkerburn to innerleithen, not far to travel for a nursery place

it may seem like a small number (certainly to me as an ex-city dweller), but 7 nurseries is a substantial portion of the available childcare options, especially in what is essentially a rural area.

for example, we live in 1 village and have to pass the next to get to our current (at risk) nursery after it, all along a single track road with no lights or pavement. The geographic spread of these nurseries and the lack of alternative provision close by isn't insignificant if you just "add on a few miles" there and back. whih is what the council are suggesting.

Travelling further may seem like a simple solution to save money (which i'm absolutely not against because of the tax increases currently going on), but drop offs/pick ups between miles-apart nurseries and schools around here would be impractical for people and literally impossible for all the ones with children in primary schools dotted around the area (no public transport, financial impact of the travel to many who struggle with higher paid employment ops). so it's a death knell for the primary schools who lose their nursery - kids will no longer feed into primary schools becasue they haven't been to the now-closed nursery.

you're basically talking about an inevitable mothballing of the 7 primary schools within 3-5 years if this goes ahead. because the numbers will wither on the vine too.

it'll be an absolute catastrophe for community cohesion and inclusion.

Also - on finances - closing nurseries is an incredibly short-sighted solution that won't result in significant savings other than an initial boost to make the numberslook better, and harms our local economy in the long run. the council have been careful not to publish the proposed financial calculations used, but the relatively small amount of money saved compared to the overall council budget and the potential long-term economic impact of reduced childcare options for working families is at direct odds with the idea of investing in early years education to benefit the entire community (and our children, future tax payers). Put it this way, if you really believe that 10% council tax increase would be, say, 5% if they went ahead with this.. I'd genuinely love to look at and work through the numbers. I'm not joking - I want the council to share the business case and if I'm wrong, I am happy to review my position. the numbers in their proposals aren't even correct -they've claimed 1 nursery has 16 staff members, when it's actually 2-3 from what I recall - i'm not sure who's been fact checking their proposal!

The cost per child of running these small schools is a multiple of the cost of a larger school. And often many of the few children attending come from outwith the catchment area. Councils are having to make hard choices.

Those small schools cover a huge geographic area - in most of the cases I know of at our nursery, kids are having to travel from across a number of different villages to get to these "small" nurseries and schools under threat. Closing them will only make that situation far worse. There's 1 woman in our nursery who'd have to travel an extra 11 miles a day if they close it - that's far more than the impact statement being stuck to by Scottish Borders council as part of the propsals i.e. they haven't done basic fact checking on a map.

I understand small, rural schools have different funding requirements than public transport-close/city settings. But that's the nature of the beast. The axe starting to shutter all these nurseries and inevitably the schools is just the start of the shuttering going too far - especially when it's done without any consultation with parents or the communities impacted.

It's not like our council tax will decrease if all these nurseries are closed. Make them more efficient, consider optimising = yes. But blanket, sweeping cuts behind closed doors? no.

Of those only ednam seems to be at all sensible - it’s walking distance ( 2 miles ish - i would drive it with childen ) to broomland ?

money is a huge issue though for the council

@kelsaycobbles but that's one of them that takes in all the kids from the other villages that don't have any provision at all. So the 6 miles a day extra by going to broom lands is on top of the 6 miles parents may also be travelling. We're not only talking about kids that attend the same nursery as the village, the newer houses being built in local villages travel through to there too. The new houses never have nursery or schools built as part of extending housing stock

Same in Dumfries and Galloway

It’s not 6 miles extra though - it’s 2 at absolute most on a decent road with a footpath all the way

whereas yetholm - it’s a good half hour to the next nursery by car and that could well be on top of a half hour drive or more - sone of these are more important to save than others

I do think the full financial analysis should be made available

Hi @kelsaycobbles one of the families doing that journey does 3 miles there and 3 miles back. I've checked Ednam to broom lands and it's 3 miles between them. So currently 6 miles a day to Ednam. If it closes, that's another 6 a day every day. 12 mile round trip if Ednam closed. On the single track from Stichill it's already not walkable at all with toddlers or prams because there's no pavements or lighting. yetholm is far worse.

Same in Aberdeenshire.

You won’t make much of a good case by being inaccurate

? I checked on Google maps

But ednam has a much less rural/remote catchment than some of the others so takes in more dc from out of the village too. Some will have much further to travel and the fast road is not a safe walk for dc if any age!