Scarborough Council pledges £100,000 to moving nursery services to Dean Road Depot

The council voted in 2017 to close operations at Manor Road Nursery and buy in plants for the borough in a bid to save more than £120,000 per year.

The move came just three years after the nursery was saved from closure. However, a task group review of the service, led by Cllr Tony Randerson (Lab), found the best option moving forward was to close the facility.

The council set aside £823,000 to convert the Dean Road site, which also now operates as an MOT centre for the borough’s taxis, but further investigations have left a shortfall in the funding.

A report by the council’s finance director Nick Edwards went before Tuesday’s meeting of the authority’s cabinet.

In it, Mr Edwards said that investigations had found greater levels of ground contamination that first expected.

He also states that “large subsurface voids” were also discovered during the investigation stage.

The report added: “The scope of the project has also increased in recent months to include the requirement to make provision for council staff and operations to relocate from High Eastfield Farm as well as the former Sports Centre site on Filey Road. This relocation has enabled these sites to be moved forwards for development as part of existing schemes but the cost of relocation was not incorporated into initial estimates.”

The timeframe of the project being completed has also been pushed back to December from April.

The cabinet agreed to the injection of £100,000 from the capital contingency reserve and also approved the sale of the Manor Road Nursery site to an unnamed bidder, subject to planning consent being granted.

No figure has been given for the price of the land. The council has budgeted to receive a minimum of £560,000 from the sale.