BROUGHTON Gifford Pre-School is to open in a new location after they reached their £60,000 target to relocate.
The pre-school which is currently based at the village hall will re-open in the new year, at a new building and on a new site as they move onto the grounds behind St. Mary’s Primary School.
The project to move the pre-school has taken a year and follows requests from parents to extend the number of days it is open. There was also a long- standing desire from the pre-school to move to the same site as the main primary school in the village.
The £60,000 target has been reached after they put in £16,000 themselves, £30,000 came from Wiltshire Council and £14,000 from Community First, who obtained the money from Hills Group Limited which was made available through the Landfill Communities Fund (LCF) which is administered for Hills by Community First, the Rural Community Council for Wiltshire.
The new building will be named ‘Rosi’s lodge’ in memory of Ros Tyre who was a playleader and resident of the village who died a few years ago. She was greatly loved by many in the village.
Joint chairman of Broughton Gifford Pre-School, Val Wilkinson said, “We started the project almost a year ago, after many parents had asked for us to be open five days a week. The pre-school has tried to have a building behind St Mary’s School for a long time, and this time everything fell into place as if it was meant to be.
“We have been open for three half-days a week in the village hall, and this became inconvenient in many ways, which encouraged us to try again. There have been difficulties, but the staff of our pre-school, the committee, and the people of Broughton Gifford have worked hard and given generously to our project.
“Parents of the children already know that our school is very good, kind and caring, and now they will be able to use new purpose-built facilities knowing that their children will be well cared for.
Our project manager, Will Anstey, who is a parent of one of the children, worked very hard to get this built to meet our specifications, and that of Ofsted.”
Val is the joint-chairman with another local woman, Ann Fielden.
The pre-school will be open after Christmas for five days per week, from 8am-3pm for children aged two to school age. They can have up to 20 children per session and they are filling fast.