Story: Kath Swinney | Photo: Lena Mohamed
Parents from four different nurseries, including Firvale Preschool, went to court in Manchester in July to challenge a decision of Sheffield City Council’s Early Years Service.
All these nurseries are based in deprived areas, are not-for-profit and each was having their grant withdrawn. Abtisam Mohammed from Firvale Pre-School said,
“The council gave their decision with no warning at a public meeting in December called The Future of Early Years. We organised a meeting of providers, parents and volunteers (60-70 people). We submitted the largest ever petition (over 10,000 signatories) to the Town Hall in January and demonstrated (500 people) outside the Town Hall. Council refused to change the decision and now we are challenging this in court.”
Professor Pat Broadhead, Sheffield Early Years Champion, resigned because of this decision as she felt she could no longer act as a bridge between service users, providers and local authority policy because “decisions that are now being made are having the greatest detrimental impact on the poorest parts of the city.”
Professor Broadhead came to court to support the nurseries, along with around 50 supporters over the two days.
We spent two full days in court listening to the case. Everyone remains hopeful, despite the long wait, because the judge said the demands of the law need to be met regardless of the economic backdrop and he had a long discussion about what would happen if he made a historic decision against Sheffield City Council.