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Nursery rent hike ‘milking poorest parents’
MP KAREN Buck has launched a blistering attack on the council accusing them of not caring about children after a nursery school in the most deprived corner of the borough was brought to its knees by a steep rent hike.
The Church Street Nursery in Lisson Grove is being asked to stump up £10,600 a year for the council’s rent collectors – a 25 per cent jump from the £8,500 they were paying.
Ms Buck branded the move “outrageous” and said the council was “milking the parents” of the poorest children in Westminster.
The council’s corporate property department originally demanded £15,000 before staff at the nursery brokered a better deal.
Ms Buck, MP for Regents Park and Kensington North, said: “They’ve come along, looked at the nursery, realised its been done up and thought they could get away with asking for more money. It’s going to mean serious cutbacks or charging for what should be free services.”
The nursery has been run by the charity Radicle since 1996, and has an average of 20 children a day. Staff said that the cuts were a “serious blow”.
The rent inflation follows two similar rises last year when Lisson Green and Carlton Hill nurseries were both stung with higher rents.
The council has promised a five-year freeze on the rent.
Mike Potter, Westminster City Council’s Director of Children’s Commissioning, said: “Church Street Nursery is an excellent local service and works very closely with the council as part of Church Street Children’s Centre.
“We will continue to provide financial support, as we have done in previous years, to ensure that this valuable provision is not put at risk.”
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