Council considers daycare centre for 75 kids

SEVENTY-FIVE children will secure childcare places if a development on the outskirts of Highfields is approved.

Plans for the Kath Dickson Family Centre have been submitted and the application is making its way through the Toowoomba Regional Council development approval process.

The proposed centre would be built on Oval Rd in Kleinton, and abut Meringandan Rd and Bennett St.

An empty lot stands on the site where a decade ago there were only paddocks and rural properties. Today, suburban blocks, part of the rapid expansion of Highfields, shoulder the lot to the south and the east, while rural land is found across Meringandan Rd.

Eleven staff would look after up to 75 children aged between 0 and five years from 7am to 6pm, Monday to Friday. Jude Mills, CEO of Kath Dickson Family Centre said a need for families to find childcare underpinned the proposal.

“The majority of people out there are young families, or young married couples who will have children on the way in the next few years. They’re both working and both travelling to and from home and into town,” Mrs Mills said. “This centre would mean they don’t have to have their child in the car travelling with them 20km to and from work.”

Hundreds of homes have been built across Highfields in recent years, and wait lists for childcare places have grown.

The proposal has been “quite well received” by neighbours, according to Mrs Mills, who said that while residents living directly next to the proposed facility had expressed “some hesitation,” most felt the centre would benefit the community.

“If we’d spoken to them and they said we don’t want a centre, that would have been it. We wouldn’t have done this,” Mrs Mills said.

Mrs Mills said she hoped the childcare facility would be approved and built, ready to welcome children in mid-2018.

An information tent will be at the site at 1 Oval Rd this Sunday between 9am and noon.