One year, 77 daycare consents in Auckland

Consent for at least 77 new early childhood education centres has been granted in Auckland in the last year.

In information provided through a Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act request, Auckland Council revealed the number of consents granted between July 2016 and July 2017. Of these, almost a third were north of Auckland’s Harbour Bridge with 24 consents granted at council service centres in Takapuna and Orewa.

The Hibiscus and Bays Local Board had the most consents for new daycares with seven in that time period.

Auckland Council couldn’t provide the number of children consented for every centre because not all were electronically recorded but where numbers were recorded, the consents ranged from 15 children with two staff to 150 children.

In Campbells Bay, a proposal to turn a former church into a centre for 150 children had been met with opposition.

Of those with the number of children supplied, there were 16 consented for 100 or more children. Other consents included existing centres which had asked for changes such as expansions.

The maximum number allowed in a daycare is 150. Consent for centres with that many children was granted at a Henderson location in April this year and consent for the Campbells Bay location was granted in December 2016.

In August, Ministry of Education figures revealed the number of centres licensed for more than 100 children has doubled in five years, from 80 to 159.

There were few centres for fewer than 30 children with just four consents.

When asked if there were enough or too many centres in the

‘‘The problem is that all these early childhood education centres need to feed into primary schools.’’ Marcia O'Brien

area, Unsworth Heights resident Marcia O’Brien wrote, on Neighbourly: ‘‘The problem is that all these ECE [early childhood education] centres need to feed into primary schools, but there doesn’t seem to be any more of these popping up. How will the schools cope when they’re already so full?’’

Fourteen consents were granted at the Henderson service centre, a total of 19 were granted in Papakura, Manukau and Pukekohe. There were 20 granted in the central service centre.

123RF Of the consents granted where numbers were provided, 16 were consented for 100 or more children.