Nursery campaigners find support in Roman Road

MUMS WHO ARE campaigning to save Tower Hamlets’ last three remaining Council day care nurseries from closure were delighted to receive a warm welcome in Roman Road market on Saturday, 11th August.

The Council is currently running a public consultation on Executive Mayor John Biggs’s announcement that he will overturn Labour Councillors’ opposition to public nursery closures in the borough and will shut them all down.

The Council is only offering an online consultation to the general public – and you have to search hard through the Council’s website to find it. To make sure a wider section of the community become aware of the Executive Mayor’s closure plans, campaigners took a printed version of the Council consultation into Roman Road Market.

“It’s annoying to have to give up most of Saturday to go out finding out what the public think,” said a spokesperson for Save Our Nurseries. “We feel like we are doing the Council’s job for them. We spoke to over 500 people and very few of them knew that the Executive Mayor wanted to close the Day Care Nurseries down – but not one person supported the plan.”

Campaigners are also worried that the Council online consultation is very misleading. It implies that if a respondent wants to keep the Day Care Nurseries open, the Council will have to close some of the borough’s Children’s Centres instead.

“This is complete nonsense,” said the spokesperson. “The Council can find new income from other sources and it can find other funds to support these centres of excellence. It just hasn’t tried.”

Ironically, no one has yet pinned down the financial costs of closing down the Council Day Care Nurseries. These could include staff redundancies, capital spending on alternative facilities for deaf children, training of staff at other centres in dealing with special needs, extra costs to social services in buying places for children with special needs and disabilities from the private sector, and the extra costs to schools of supporting children who have not been prepared for school by the Council’s day care nursery system. The human costs have not been calculated.

•To sign the Save Our Nurseries petition, go to:
Petition

•To read the Save Our Nurseries guide to filling in the Council consultation (which includes a link to the consultation), go to:
Briefing and Consultation

•Read more about it:
Crowds sign up to stop nursery closures
“Mum’s the word!” as Council silences nursery protest