Tryst creche closes as leisure bosses deem cost 'unsustainable'

The Tryst Leisure Centre has housed a crèche for more than 40 years, but operator North Lanarkshire Leisure says it is no longer able to continue subsidising it.

Former creche worker Marian Robertson contacted the News and Chronicle to express her disappointment at the move. She said:“Your paper covered the opening of the service around November 1975 and it has since successfully cared for hundreds upon hundreds of babies and pre-school children.

“Parents and carers were able to leave their children, safe in the knowledge they were being looked after by highly trained and dedicated staff, while they enjoyed the use of the sports facilities.

“It provided a lifeline for many parents who did not have anyone else they could leave their children with, to give them a break. This was a pioneering service.”

Greg Findlay, who runs the Castle Comics shop in Cumbernauld Town Centre, found the creche an invaluable support in the years before his son started school. He said: “As a stay at home dad I felt it was a great service and people will miss it. It was only two hours but I would get a chance to sit at my laptop and do a bit of work.”

A spokesman for NLL said the creche was unsustainable. It cost £14 per child per day yet brought in around ten per cent of that amount as revenue, and NLL was unable to continue operating the service at such a high level of subsidy.