COLERNE’S Gooseberry Bush nursery has closed, leaving 52 children looking for new nursery places, after receiving an ‘inadequate’ Ofsted rating.

Following the inspection on April 12, the nursery was served with an enforcement notice.

As the premises is owned by the Ministry of Defence, the nursery, which operates from Azimghur Barracks, says it cannot deal with some of the issues and has been forced to close.

Managing director of the nursery Claire Stringer said: “It is with much regret that we have decided to close our Colerne setting with immediate effect.

“We would like to state that we are strongly contesting the findings of the Ofsted inspector and we are currently in the process of appealing.

“We find the report to be factually incorrect and misleading in that it does not accurately reflect the reality of our provision, nor the feedback given to us by the inspector on the day.

“We feel that enforcement action is thoroughly unjustified and we are addressing this in our appeal.”

In its 2013 inspection, the nursery received a ‘good’ rating but now has scored inadequate for its effectiveness of leadership and management, its teaching and learning quality, its outcomes for children and its personal development, behaviour and welfare.

According to Mrs Stringer the written report and the consequent enforcement action was a big shock as they were complimented at the time for their leadership, management skills and safeguarding procedures.

“Unfortunately, our appeal to Ofsted will not be processed in time to allow us to remain open,” said Mrs Stringer.

“It is also important to say that no children have ever been harmed at Colerne nor were they ever at significant risk of harm, as the report states.

"We have ample evidence of staff and management carrying out regular risk assessments and managing risk effectively at the setting.

“We understand that our decision will cause some distress amongst the families we work with. We are well aware that for some, the flexibility that our Colerne setting provided will be much missed.

“So For this reason, we have redeployed some of our staff to work directly with the families affected. We are working hard to ensure that our families receive all the support they need.”

The nursery opened in 2009, ran from Monday to Friday from 7.30am-6.30pm and had 10 members of staff, five of whom have level 3 and above childcare qualifications.