South Wales Evening Post - 30 November 2006
Parents in Swansea's Eastside are fighting to save a nursery threatened with closure.
Margaret Street Nursery will shut when the new St Thomas Community School opens in April next year.
But the Grenfell Park, St Thomas and Port Tennant (GSP) community regeneration partnership is battling with local parents to keep the building.
GSP director Pat Brown said: "We think that to lose the existing purpose-built nursery building would be a great loss to the whole of our community.
"We would like to take it over and run it as a nursery for babies and toddlers under three.
"Opening this nursery would not only provide a service missing in our community, as there is no provision for nursery care for babies and children under three anywhere this side of the river, but also it would create jobs.
"However, to get the council to consider allowing us to take over this building, we need to persuade them that this is a service which the community wants and is prepared to pay for."
Locals fear the site could be sold off to developers unless enough people agree to the nursery proposal.
A special circular is to be sent out to all households in the area in an attempt to win support for the plan.
The area's youth forum spokesman, Daniel Thomas, has already called for the Margaret Street Nursery site to be used to benefit local people, not developers.
"We need more youth provision in our area but it seems that what little we did have is being taken away," he said.
"We want Margaret Street to remain a community resource."
St Thomas councillor Alan Richards said: "What I am looking to see is the result of the consultation and that the business plan stacks up on the viability.
"If it is a goer, it will have my whole-hearted support.
"If it is something that would benefit the community rather than a developer making a buck out of it, then great."
