South Tyneside Council leaders told to delay decision on closing Stanley's nurseries in last ditch plea
Special scrutiny panel meeting held just hours before decision day saw members told there were serious concerns over the impact of nursery on children with special educational needs.
A key council scrutiny panel has called on South Tyneside’s political leaders to delay making a decision on controversial plans to close ten daycare nurseries.
South Tyneside Council’s Reform UK cabinet is set to consider proposals at a meeting this afternoon to shut all ten of the borough’s South Tyneside Accredited Network for Learning in the Early Years (Stanley’s) centres.
The report states the current service is not financially sustainable and needs significant funding, with the service currently requiring an annual council subsidy of around £1.1million, and the report adds that “identifying equivalent savings elsewhere would require reductions in other frontline and preventative services.”
South Tyneside Council states that the nursery closure proposals follow a review of the service, a consultation with staff, consideration of the feedback received from service users and an assessment of childcare available across the borough.
The local authority added it would continue to make sure there are enough good-quality childcare places for families in South Tyneside.
Joanna Taylor, who launched the initial petition calling for Stanley’s to be saved, vowed that the campaign will continue to fight for the future of the nurseries.
The issue was put under the spotlight at a special meeting of the council’s education and skills scrutiny committee at South Shields Town Hall on Tuesday (September 22), which saw councillors quiz senior council officers from children’s services and finance departments on the cabinet report.
The meeting, which lasted nearly three hours, was attended by campaigners opposing the Stanley’s daycare nursery closures and several councillors on the scrutiny panel asked questions on their behalf.
Issues discussed included alternative options for the future of the Stanley’s service including “remodelling” the service and increasing fees, a proposal which was not recommended to cabinet as a preferred option.
Concerns were also raised about the impacts closing 10 Stanley’s nurseries would have in terms of demand for nursery places and impacts on children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), along with wider concerns about the quality of provision elsewhere in the borough, safeguarding, equalities, transport and more.
When the meeting drew to a close, several councillors said there were still unanswered questions and it was agreed, unanimously, to make a recommendation to cabinet.
The scrutiny recommendation calls on the cabinet to defer making a decision on Stanley’s until after the education and skills scrutiny committee on October 8, 2026, to allow questions from councillors and campaigners to be answered and for more information to be gathered to inform decision-makers.
However, it was acknowledged that the ruling cabinet does not have to agree to the scrutiny recommendation and can still proceed with the closure proposal if they choose to do so.
A separate proposal at Tuesday’s scrutiny meeting, recommending that the Reform UK cabinet send the Stanley’s closure proposals to a full meeting of all 54 borough councillors, did not win majority support.
Although South Tyneside Council has a legal duty to ensure there are enough childcare places in the borough, it states that it does not have to run those services itself.
The council believes that it is the only local authority in the country that is providing childcare directly on this scale and stated the latest assessment found there were enough good-quality childcare places borough-wide to meet the demand of residents.
The education and skills scrutiny committee is made up of elected councillors from Reform UK, the Green Party and the Labour Party.