It will come as no surprise to many, but there has been a significant rise in the amount of nurseries closing nationally within the past year, and the rate of which settings are closing seems to be rising fast.
Research conducted by the NDNA highlighted that in 2022-23, over 50% of closures occurred than in the previous year.
The Early Years Sector in the UK is expecting a significant injection of Government funded childcare in 2024, but there is concern that there will not be enough settings left by this point to meet the growing demand for funded child-care spaces.
The research also concluded that these closures are more likely to occur in areas of deprivation, with 37% of the closures that happened in 2022/23 happened within the 30% of most deprived areas in England, in comparison to the 34% of closures in 2021/22 that occured in the same 30% most deprived areas.
A shockingly bleak statistic for our sector.
Read more about the statistics here (source: NMT News Item)