A thriving business shouldn’t be closing down

The childcare system for pre-schoolers is in disarray across the UK. Despite parents and guardians having to fork out a higher percentage of their salaries than all of our European neighbours for someone to look after their youngsters, it is still not enough.

Nurseries and the like are closing at almost epidemic rate – around 5,000 are reported to have fallen by the wayside in the past year.

It was clearly enough to wake the government up and realise that they need to do something. A reform of how parents pay was a key plank of Jeremy Hunt’s budget last month.

While the announcement that the 30 hours of free childcare will be extended to all children from nine months, rather than the current three years old, was welcomed by parents, it raised alarms from the providers.

Many nurseries have warned that they already face a shortfall in the subsidy they receive to cover the free hours for three and four year olds, and that the chancellor’s £4bn for the scheme may not be enough to exacerbate the existing budgetary problems.

And so we end up with places like Portchester’s Andy Pandy Pre-School making the sad decision to close their doors after 60 years.

We are not going to debate the rights and wrongs of the governing association’s decision or how they went about it, but it is surely not one they would have taken lightly.

Of course the parents have the right to be angry at a sudden announcement to close.

But if a well-used and popular pre-school business still can’t afford to make the books balance, then there is obviously something wrong with the system.

Like so many other things in our country right now, childcare is broken. Only a complete overhaul will fix it.