Increase the number of children allowed to play in the garden at Norbury Hill Cubs Day Nursery

Till last year for the past three consecutive years we were able to care for 10 children in the garden at a time.

As a nursery we are allowed to care for 20 children per day, we are now only allowed to have 7 children in the garden at each time.

This is extremely unfair to the children especially as we have an amazing outside area which can cater for far more children at a time; our children are extremely well behaved.

All children should have the freedom to access the garden when they wish.

We are having to restrain them against their wishes to ensure that our neighbour does not complain for the third time to the council. A third complaint would mean that the council would take action against us and put a breach order on our property.

Our outdoor area is part of our free flow setting area. Our children are not able to understand why they cannot go in the garden when others are there. This is not providing equal opportunity to all the children in our care.

In the past we have used our garden in the evenings / weekends to hold gatherings such as Spring Fairs and birthday parties, this has been a crucial part of our child care setting in that we have used this time to create a community feeling within our setting. Parents / grandparents/ family friends have been able to meet and socialise. This in turn has benefited our setting to ensure a personalised feeling so to speak to our child care. Our garden is a pivotal part of the child care we provide to the children we look after.

Please sign our petition so that we can extend our planning permission to include more children in the garden and also to be able to hold community gatherings.