Consultation on future of Govanhill nurseries

Glasgow City Council is building a nursery in the grounds of Cuthbertson Primary School to help meet the Scottish Government’s commitment to provide 1140 hours of statutory childcare.

It is proposed that Govanhill Nursery and Cuthbertson Nursery will use the new site.

The consultation process will be held on the plan to move Cuthbertson Nursery, and starts from August 30. A public meeting will be held in Cuthbertson Primary School at 7pm on Wednesday, September 8.

Cllr Chris Cunningham, the city’s education convener, said: “The new nursery would provide high quality early learning and childcare and would have 87 full-time equivalent places for 2 to 5 year olds.

“This is a significant increase in the number of places available and with extended hours which would give parents more flexibility.

“While the establishment of a new nursery does not require statutory consultation, the closure of an existing one does. That includes the closure of a nursery class, however small.

“This statutory consultation arises from the intention to move the nursery class from Cuthbertson Primary School across the playground to the new building and to reuse the current nursery classroom as part of Cuthbertson Primary.”

Staff at Cuthbertson Nursery will be offered to relocate to the new nursery. Any who did not want to transfer would be offered vacancies in other nurseries.

The proposal for a new nursery, on a sports pitch next to Cuthbertson Primary, was approved in December last year.

The building at Govanhill Nursery School will be “made available to other providers of early learning and childcare through the council’s flexible renting policy”.

Bailie Soryia Siddique, a local councillor, thanked the parent council for their work on the plan and said she looked “forward to seeing these aspirations met”.

She said she has “some concerns around language barriers and a digital divide” but had received “some assurances” from council officers on plans to “mitigate these barriers” to the consultation.

Consultation responses will be gathered via a questionnaire, which will be on the council website. Schools and nurseries will also be asked to include the link in their newsletters to parents and carers.

The process will end on October 20 and a report on the responses will then be presented to councillors.

Plans for the new nursery revealed there would be four playrooms, a dining room, offices, kitchen and toilet/changing facilities. The main entrance will be off Coplaw Street, where an entrance square would be created.