Shocked parents are out of pocket and scrabbling to find childcare after a Farnham nursery closed without warning.

Parents from Starfish Nursery, Morley Road, were emailed last Saturday (December 6) by owner Charlotte Dartmouth, who initially wrote that the nursery would run without a manager until December 19 – a situation parents believed would have breached Ofsted requirements – but followed this up a few hours later with a second email saying that it would not reopen at all.

This second email also promised that insolvency practitioners would be in touch last Monday about refunds for money already paid, but this has not happened and a subsequent email today (Friday, December 12) stated that the company would tell parents when a liquidator or official receiver was appointed.

One mother whose children have been at the nursery over the past five years said she was not altogether surprised by the closure but shocked at the way it had happened.

“There’s been a high turnover of staff and there have been signs of financial difficulty in public Companies House records, so I thought it might be wound down at some point, but not suddenly, and I am angry with how it has been handled,” she said.

“The communications have been awful and parents have been unable to contact the owner. We’re all down on money – some parents by more than £1,000 – and this at Christmas, and we’ve all had to cobble together last-minute childcare.

“We are all working parents and desperately searching for new nurseries. Thankfully the nurseries in Farnham are being understanding.”

Despite Starfish’s problems, parents were generally positive about the nursery. One mother said her children had been happy there, while a father described it as “brilliant” and said it would benefit from a takeover.

He said: “There is a route to the nursery opening again if the community rallies around it and it gets new ownership that can manage it. I’d gladly be a part of this.”

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