AN outstanding nursery near York has closed its doors.

Sandmartins Nursery, based at the York Biotech Campus at Sand Hutton, received the highest possible grade following an Ofsted visit in August last year, but today (September 6) they have announced they are closing their doors.

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Sandmartins  Nursery opened as a workplace nursery on the York Biotech Campus site in 1996, with current owners Debbie Ashby and Helen Pearson forming part of the original management team.

Faced with redundancy in January 2020 and the potential closure of Sandmartins Nursery because of a contractual change, Debbie and Helen took over the nursery during the lockdowns.

Today in a letter to parents they have said: "As you know we are a small independent early year’s business that has been operating on the site since early 2020 and prior to this under our previous employer back when we first opened in 1996.

"Following on from discussions with our landlord and local authority we both have had to make the very emotional decision to close the business from Thursday, October 5.

"There are several reasons for this decision which include:
-Spiralling costs in all areas of the business.
-Our terms of lease with the site have come to an end along with a potential sale of the business which sadly has fallen through today.
-As you will be aware we have had to rely on agency staff to support us in recent months, which has had cost implications. Huge efforts to recruit new staff have been met with very poor applicants and response.
-The impact on senior management has been immense.

"We wish to stress this has not been an easy decision for either of us, as we know the impact on everyone is huge. This decision was quicker than we would have liked but we had to take into account the academic year.

"We will now support everyone; parents, children, and our staff team in the coming weeks as the next stage of transitioning takes place."

Sandmartins Nursery provides care for children aged from three months to five years, for both parents in the local community and also for employees working at leading bioscience organisations based at York Biotech Campus, including Abingdon Health, Fera, Covance and Labskin.

At the time of the Ofsted inspection, Liz Cashon, Innovation Campus manager at York Biotech Campus, said: "Sandmartins Nursery is a really important asset for York Biotech Campus. It can be incredibly difficult to find high quality childcare, let alone childcare that works around a parent’s working life, and many of the employees based onsite take advantage of it.

“We hear first-hand from our occupiers about how having the nursery so close to their work makes balancing childcare much easier for them, meaning that they can focus on important scientific research, discovery and application, comforted by the knowledge that their children are being well looked after, and are only a short distance away.”