Express & Star

Major new nursery to open in February

A Staffordshire nursery business has secured funding to buy land and build what could be one of the UK's largest children's nurseries.

Published
Left to right - Dal and Harcharan Basra of Sandhills with Manoj Patel, from Barclays

Sandhills Day Nurseries, owned by husband and wife team Dalbir and Harcharan Basra, has purchased a three acre site in Lower Penn, Wolverhampton and will be building a custom designed nursery which will offer an education facility for 205 children.

Funding to back the scheme has come from Barclays. Work is now under way and the nursery is due to open in February next year, creating 30 new jobs in the area.

Sandhills, which was established in 2005, currently has six other nurseries across the West Midlands including Alvechurch, Barnt Green in Worcestershire, Boston in Lincolnshire, Codsall and Wombourne in South Staffordshire – all of which are rated good or outstanding by OFSTED.

Director Dalbir Basra said: “Since we started the company it has always been our ambition to design and construct our own purpose-built nursery which can offer the very best facilities for the children within our care.

"With Barclays support, we are now able to realise this ambition and are looking forward to being able to offer this state of the art facility in due course to local families.”

The new nursery aims to offer a welcoming “home from home” environment using the innovative Reggio Emilia approach to education, which aims to allow the children to use their own natural curiosity and energy to help guide their own development.

Among the facilities on offer will be playdough stations, natural open-ended resources, children’s cooking facilities and a reflections room amongst many others. A library, will be incorporated to help enhance the children’s vocabulary, to help them understand how to read and write, but also to allow children to develop their understanding of different topics about the wider world and everyday life.

The Sandhills team believes the outdoor environment should be an extension of the inside offering a wealth of choice between activities so that children can learn to problem solve, explore, experiment, dig, paint and collaborate ideas. The location of the new nursery will offer large outdoor spaces to enrich the children’s learning and development, as to enrich the best classroom and richest cupboard is roofed only by the sky.

Funding was provided by Barclays and relationship director Manoj Patel said: “Dalbir and Harcharan have grown their business significantly since they started out back in 2005. I am really pleased that we have been able to support them with this exciting phase of their expansion. The funding comes from our Midlands Growth Fund – a £370 million fund launched earlier this year to support SME growth and job creation.”

The new nursery is due to open in February 2019 and will create 30 new jobs in the area.