Nursery opens onsite swimming academy

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Strawberry Fields Nursery and Preschool in Chorley, Lancashire, is a purpose-built 110-place setting, with an onsite swimming academy and café.

The swimming academy provides Strawberry Fields with a differentiated offering in the marketplace and an additional revenue stream outside of nursery hours.

Since opening two years ago, the swim academy is at full capacity, with 500 people on the waiting list. The nursery is currently operating at around 50 per cent capacity, despite being “inundated” with demand, particularly for baby places.

“We’ve had to cap the numbers because the recruitment crisis is so dire that we just don’t have the staff,” explains co-owner Simon Redwood. “This is disappointing because we have parents who desperately want to get their children in.”

Both parts of the business have their own revenue streams and are “sustainable” in their own right. Mortgage costs, business rates and fuel are shared. But the heating costs of the pool have “only been financially viable” by increasing the prices of swimming lessons. “Ultimately, if the nursery was in financial difficulty, we could pull resources from the pool,” Redwood says. “This puts us in a better place than other standalone nurseries in the area.”

But despite this added security, Strawberry Fields Nursery faces the same day-to-day challenges as other UK nurseries.

“What we receive from the local authority per hour for funded three year-olds and for the ‘handful’ of two-year-olds in receipt of the 15-hour entitlements, doesn’t cover the costs of a day’s childcare, despite the recent rise of around three per cent. We cannot afford to pay our staff more and as a result, the sector is facing a staffing crisis,” Redwood says.

To remain sustainable, the setting is looking at reducing the number of places for babies. “We’re not prepared to compromise on quality, so there’s no option but to reduce capacity,” Redwood explains.

“In the toddler room, we can have 40 children with eight members of staff on a 1:5 ratio. Our baby room has 21 places at capacity, but we need seven members of staff for a 1:3 ratio. So, we’re looking at deploying members of staff from the baby room to other rooms with higher ratios. But it’s hard because there’s high demand,” he adds.

Chargeable extras include food and weekly swimming lessons during the nursery day. “We charge around £2 a day for breakfast, lunch and tea, but this too will soon have to increase due to spiralling food costs,” Redwood admits.

Most of the children in the nursery are signed up for swimming lessons, which are offered at a 10 per cent discount. The sessions take place in the afternoon when the pool is free from lessons.

“The nursery pays the pool for the swimming lessons that take place during the day, so in a way, they both sustain each other,” Redwood says.

The pool is open daily from 9am to 8pm and runs aqua aerobics classes, aqua natal, baby, toddler and preschool classes and swimming lessons. Spaces are limited to six people per class, or 10 for some school sessions. On Saturdays, the pool can be hired between six to 8pm for birthday parties.

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The business model works – and “it’s effective”, explains Redwood, who operates the nursery alongside his full-time job as a firefighter. But “only if you can staff it”, he admits.

“The pool is a hook for prospective parents – whether they come to look around the nursery or are taking an aqua natal class and thinking about childcare, there’s a constant flow of new customers,” he adds.

Redwood and his business partner, Andrew Rose, have a track record of operating leisure facilities alongside nurseries. In 2008, they opened Planet Kaos Nursery and Preschool in Blackpool, which has an indoor activity and soft play centre on site.

“Both models have ‘pulls’ to get children through the door, which work. But we have the same issues with staffing,” he says.

“Pre-Covid it was 96 per cent full, now it’s 60 per cent. We tried offering Saturday childcare but it wasn’t sustainable.

“We’ve paid £1,700 for a recruitment agency to find us staff but the right people are just not coming through the doors. The government needs to step in to help the sector or there will be no nurseries left.”

Oak North Bank has provided growth capital to pursue a “buy-and-build strategy” to bring more nurseries with swimming academies to market. But Redwood admits that with interest rates almost doubling in the past two years, along with “hiked business rates” and “huge staffing challenges”, he “couldn’t take on another nursery at the moment”.