Lynn Woodward, managing director of Busy Bees nurseries division, said,'Every nursery that we have has to contribute from a financial point ofview and some of these nurseries have been sustaining heavy losses,probably for the last three years, and therefore they are notsustainable. You have to be able to maintain your business and make surethat those nurseries contributing well are not drained by the lack ofcontribution from others.'
The decision to close ten of the 88 Leapfrog nurseries from mid- tolate-November effectively ratifies a plan to shut them devised by NordAnglia prior to the takeover, which was completed on 19 September. Theten nurseries are in Coventry, Stevenage, Reading, Fulham, HammersmithCentre West, Hemel Hempstead, Lincoln, Northampton Riverside, LondonSmithfield and Bradford.
When Busy Bees and its parent company, the Australian-based ABC LearningCentres, bought the Leapfrog nurseries from Nord Anglia, it was clearthat several might close because they were losing money. However, therevelation that one of them had an occupancy level of just 15 per centand others were running as low as 24 per cent will come as a shock tothe sector.
Mrs Woodward said that following Nord Anglia's decision to shut thenurseries, Busy Bees had conducted its own review of each facility,looking at their history, location and occupancy levels, and concludedthat the original plan to close them was appropriate.
She added, 'We are going to concentrate on consolidating the twobusinesses and making sure we have got a very strong nursery group.'
She said that meetings had been held last week with the 180 staffaffected by the closures, and efforts were being made to match displacedemployees to vacancies within the company.
There are plans to meet parents over the next week to try to help themfind alternative childcare arrangements. Mrs Woodward said, 'We will tryto offer them places in our own nurseries that are adjacent to thesesites, or we will work with other providers in the area to ensure asmooth transition for our parents. Our priority is to ensure that thechildren are settled into new provision.'