Catherine Clark and Ali Haydor, Southampton Socialist Party and Southampton GMB branch secretary, personal capacity (respectively)
StartPoint Sholing nursery and preschool in Southampton is under threat of permanent closure by the Labour council.
The nursery looks after a high proportion of children with special educational needs and disabilities. The staff are highly trained and demand for places has always been very high.
The nursery was opened as a Sure
-Start centre in 1998 and became a centre of excellence in 2003, as a specialist preschool providing training and sharing good practice with other nurseries in Southampton.
At the beginning of this academic year, the council closed the nursery. It had closed new registrations throughout the previous year.
The council will meet to decide the fate of the nursery on 29 November and has been paying staff until the council meets after the consultation closed on 12 October.
The council uses the excuse that it cannot afford to run the nursery. It treats vital services as if they are businesses that need to break even or make a profit. But access to affordable and flexible childcare is a necessity for families so parents and carers can work.
With the support of trade unions Unison, GMB and Southampton and South West Hampshire Trades Council, staff and parents organised an event in Bitterne precinct on Saturday 19 October. Campaigners informed the local community of what is happening, and how they can support the fight for the nursery to remain open.
Five Socialist Party members were among the campaigners, including the secretary of the Southampton GMB branch, the chair of the trades council, the women’s rep for Unison district branch, a Unison rep, and a Unite Community member.
I have sent in a freedom of information request to the council in relation to the nursery. Trade union officers, staff and parents will have further meetings to plan their approach to save the service. The manager of the nursery will be speaking at the Southampton march and anti-cuts conference taking place on Saturday 2 November 2024.
A Socialist Party and Unison member, who works at the StartPoint nursery in Northam, reports members feeling like the council has already made up its mind over the Sholing site.
But the fight continues. We have fought off service closures by this Labour council before and we can do so again.
We demand that the council keeps the nursery open, and stops all cuts to local services. It should follow the policy of Unison in local government, for councils to set “legal no-cuts budgets”. Taking such a stand can be part of mobilising the community and trade unions to fight Keir Starmer’s government for the funding councils need.
Join the Southampton Trades Council march and anti-cuts conference on 2 November, assembling at noon Bargate, then march to Friends Meeting House, SO15 2AZ for conference at 1PM
