Playgroup needs a new home

Maxholme Playgroup needs to find another venue

They have been asked to leave their current home in Bearsden Baptist Church’s Maxholme House by June next year, after 48 years of serving the community.

Maxholme Playgroup committee chairperson, Melanie Eynon, said: “We are asking people to help us to find somewhere suitable to continue running the playgroup.

“As we are a not for profit organisation we can’t afford to pay expensive rent and we’d like to create the same home from home atmosphere that we have here.

“At the moment children can move freely from room to room to enjoy a variety of activities and they really enjoy that.

“We still want to be a big part of Milngavie and Bearsden.

“Lots of people know the name of Maxholme and some of our staff attended the playgroup when they were children. They really care about Maxholme.

“We are all very sad that we now face an uncertain future.”

John Nonhebel, church secretary, said: “We met with the playgroup last November and told them they would no longer be able to use the premises due to developing plans that we have for the church.

“We gave them options, they could vacate in June 2017 or June 2018 - depending on what suited their needs.

“We appreciate that this was a significant decision for the playgroup and one that we found difficult and had taken a lot of time over.

“We have a growing church and a growing need for space within our premises for our own child care projects. We also have a mid-week café which we would like to expand.

“There are other potential developments and we will soon be instructing an architect to do a feasibility study to ascertain how we can best use and develop our premises so that we can better serve the community.

“We have had a close and valuable connection with the playgroup over a number of years but unfortunately the strength of that connection has been weakened over recent years with the Care Inspectorate’s insistence on certain requirements that limit our use of the building.”

To donate towards their rent or if you know of any premises please email: [email protected]