Scottish nursery parents fear extra £2,000 childcare bill after closure announcement

Parents at a nursery in Aberdeenshire said they will have to pay some £2,000 in wrap-around childcare costs following the announcement their local nursery was being mothballed.

Glass nursery, near Huntly, is one of four nurseries to be closed temporarily in the region. The move came in a shock announcement to families just before the Easter holidays started.

Campaigners protesting against the temporary closure of Glass nursery after the announcement to mothball the facility was made earlier this month | Supplied

It comes as cash-strapped local authorities across Scotland are taking the same money-saving approach.

Scottish Borders Council has also unveiled plans to mothball seven nursery schools in the coming year due to declining numbers, in a bid to save around £400,000.

Parents and carers fear mothballing Glass nursery, which had just set up a community library at the facility, will lead to its permanent closure.

Campaigner and parent at the nursery Catriona Skene said the closure would have “profound and far-reaching consequences” for the community.

“We have worked out this move will inevitably result in the need for additional wrap-around childcare, costing each family approximately £2,000 extra per year,” Ms Skene told The Scotsman.

The nursery is one of four in Aberdeenshire alone that has been earmarked for closure this year | Supplied

She said the costs would involve roughly the extra 3,000 miles families would need to travel per year to take their children elsewhere, and the likelihood some parents would have to drop an hour of work each day to adjust.

Ms Skene said: “Why should local families be forced to bear this significant financial and emotional strain due to the council’s failure to uphold its responsibility to provide accessible early years education?

“Decisions like these erode rural communities and place disproportionate pressure on those who live in them.”

Campaigners defending nurseries in rural areas said closing them would exacerbate depopulation issues by discouraging families from wanting to live there. They have urged local authorities to address the shortage of early years provision rather than reducing options further.

Scottish Conservative MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Alexander Burnett, has written to the Scottish Government. He is due to raise the concerns in the Scottish Parliament next week.

“If the SNP Government doesn’t address this crisis, it will have serious economic consequences as parents struggle to balance work and childcare,” he said.

Analysis from the party released earlier this year showed there had been a net loss of more than 250 schools in Scotland since 2007. In the past two decades, 384 schools have been closed and a further 59 mothballed, while in the same period 174 have opened, according to the figures.

Aberdeenshire Council guidance says the decision to mothball a school is made by the Director of Education and Children’s Services (DECS) when the roll has fallen very low to protect the educational benefits and social wellbeing of the pupils.

A spokesperson for the council said Glass nursery was operating at 31 per cent of its physical and operational capacity.

The spokesperson said: “It is important to note that this is not a permanent closure. The status of these ELC settings will be reviewed regularly, taking into account demand and forecast data. Any decision to permanently close a setting would only be made following full consultation with parents and local communities.”

Rules around school closures - set out in the Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act 2010 - were introduced to make it harder to shut rural schools.

But Laurence Findlay, president of education directors’ body ADES and Aberdeenshire Council’s DECS, told education magazine Tes Scotland the law needed to be “refreshed and modernised”.

He said the law, instead of protecting rural schools, was resulting in them “withering on the vine” when there should be pro-active plans in place for the school estate.

The Scottish Government previously said decisions on the school estate were taken by councils and the local authorities had a responsibility to ensure “adequate and efficient” provision.

It pointed to a £2 billion investment in the Learning Estate Investment Programme and that the number of schools in “good” and “satisfactory” condition had increased from 62.7 per cent in 2007 to 91.7 per cent in 2024.