Eleven new nurseries and 220 extra places planned across Fife

The new buildings form part of a £80m programme which will see 29 buildings expanded or improved as well as the new facilities over the next three years.

This will add an additional 2248 places for early learning and childcare places  across Fife.

Some will be based in leisure centres.

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The initiative by Fife Council comes as part of the Scottish Government’s policy to increase ELC provision from 600 to 1140.

Shelagh Mclean, head of education and children’s services, said: “Fife Sports and Leisure Trust have identified additional capacity available in three of

their leisure centres, namely Cowdenbeath, Duloch and Carnegie.

“These spaces were previously used to deliver crèche services for the Trust. We are planning to develop these to offer funded ELC instead.

“Work will be required to upgrade these facilities to meet current Care Inspectorate regulations but we hope that all these settings will be available to deliver funded ELC by August 2019.”

Work will also get underway to  to develop a dedicated nursery facility within Methilhaven Care Home in Methil – believed to be the first dual use of its kind in Scotland.

Shelagh added:  ” This has been designed to allow intergenerational learning to take place in an innovative and sector leading environment and is expected to be completed by June 2020.”

Clark Graham, early years workforce development co-ordinator, added: “The Methilhaven Care Home is a unique project –  it provides a unique capacity to develop the nursery in a care village, which is a superb way to progress.”

The new ew nursery sites are: Rosyth Resource Centre; Halbeath Community Centre; South Dunfermline; Hill of Beath Community Centre; Lochgelly North Primary School; Foulford Primary School; Kinglassie Primary School; Kirkcaldy North Community Hub site (Templehall); Methilhaven Care Home and Nursery; Leuchars Primary School; Newburgh Primary School