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Nursery
silence speaks volumes
• A year ago some parents from Agar Grove Community
Nursery were informed their current premises on Wrotham Road
would be closed in 2006 and moved to another location in the
borough.
This was to facilitate the development of the council’s
Sure Start Baby Centre at the site.
Months went by with no further information available to parents.
February 28 2006: at the AGM of Camden Community Nurseries parents
who asked questions regarding the future of the nursery and
provision for their children were met with what they described
as a ‘hostile’ response.
CCN’s Management Committee said nothing more was known
about the future of the nursery apart from confirmation that
it would close on July 31. The committee said they expected
further details from Camden Council by March 31.
A week later a worried mother was told that there was no further
information available and neither to expect news of any developments
by March 31.
Parents discovered through questions, meetings and further phone
calls that the nursery would not be relocated. It would simply
be shut down.
By early April 2006 no provision had been made for any of the
30 children currently attending the nursery.
Some placements may be made available for children who had been
placed in Agar Grove by social services but those children whose
parents had chosen the nursery for their children were not guaranteed
a place.
There were no guarantees that any of the staff currently working
with the children, some of them vulnerable, would be accompanying
any of the children to other nurseries in the borough.
There was no guarantee that the children would be placed at
any of the two remaining CNN nurseries. For months when the
member of staff responsible for the baby centre initiative was
off ill, no-one else in the office did anything to further the
project. The parents requested a meeting at the earliest opportunity.
By April 7 we expected a reply. None came.
It was suggested by Camden officers that the standards at Agar
had been low, and that there had been problems for at least
two years. This is not the case, hence the positive Ofsted report.
It needs support, yes, but it is not failing. The earliest a
meeting could take place
was May 5.
It was not lost on the parents that this was one day clear of
the local government election.
We asked for an earlier date. Eventually by 4pm on Friday April
7 we received a faxed letter stating a meeting could take place
on May 2. Our children are worth more than this.
The Parents of Agar Grove
Community Centre
• In the course of your report on the closed Fitzrovia
Children’s Centre, Councillor Theo Blackwell is quoted
as saying “senior officers have been in contact with the
Trust”.
The facts of the matter are that – following our offer
of alternatives for the reopening of the Centre in June 2005
– apart from an acknowledgement, there has been no substantive
response from the council. Indeed an offer in July 2005 to prepare
a business plan in conjunction with Westminster Children’s
Society for the running of the Centre has, to this day, received
no response.
On September 20 2005, we were told that there were legal issues
(since resolved), and on October 4 that Gillian Humble, the
officer responsible, would no longer be dealing with it.
Since which time, now over six months ago, no communication
has been received from Camden.
The Fitzrovia Trust’s offer to reopen the nursery at no
cost to the council still stands.
Sandra Edwards
Director
The Fitzrovia Trust
South Parade
W4
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