Iain Dalton, Save Little Owls Nursery campaigner and Leeds Socialist Party
Parents from the Save Little Owls nurseries campaign now know that four of the twelve nurseries threatened with privatisation by the Labour council, are not being put out for tender to private operators, including Quarry Mount which parents have received a letter confirming it will remain with Leeds City Council. This brings the total number of nurseries the council will definitely retain to 10, out of 21 remaining nursery settings across the city. What else can we save from privatisation?
Our campaign brought together parents with council trade unionists to demonstrate outside the council chamber, and march outside threatened nurseries. The four nurseries include Hunslet St Mary’s, where our campaign ran a lively demonstration, just ahead of last year’s local elections. I and other parents were interviewed on ITV. Parklands and Hawksworth Wood have also been removed from the tender, although these three nurseries could still be taken over by the school’s they are co-located with, with St Mary’s being part of a multi-academy trust, whilst the other two are still local authority maintained.
After initially proposing to close or privatise 15 nurseries last year, this year the Labour council is consulting on 40% cuts to children’s centres. Some children’s centres are co-located with nurseries.
When consulting on nurseries – a secretive ‘market-testing’ exercise – the council told parents that there were no proposed changes to children’s centres. This reinforces how little trust parents have in a council that is unprepared to stand up and fight for services, not to make more cuts in the future.
This year, we had a clear example of how disastrous private ownership of nurseries can be. Leafield House nursery closed down without warning in February, after it was reported that children there could be “exposed to a risk of harm”. This nursery had been rated in the top 20 out of over 1,000 in Yorkshire, and charged £87 a day in nursery fees.
Our campaign has forced the council back twice. First, delaying the closure of three nurseries from May, until the end of the school year, and now keeping four nurseries off the tender to private providers.
The remaining eight nurseries under threat of privatisation are currently undergoing a tendering process by the council. The council has pledged that these nurseries will stay open, even if a suitable tender is not submitted. The Save Little Owls Nurseries campaign will be keenly following the outcome, and discussing our next steps.
