In recent weeks and months, we’ve looked at various examples of councils trying to close nurseries using a process known as mothballing.

This involves the allegedly temporary closure of an education setting, although the reality is that once a school or nursery has been mothballed it is vanishingly unlikely to ever see it open again.

Mothballing is only supposed to be used as a last resort when school or nursery rolls fall to, or very close to, zero. It is intended as an alternative to a permanent closure, and a mechanism to at least try to keep settings open, but instead councils are using it as a policy tool to help them cut (or “rationalise”) the level of service they provide. Budget decisions push officials to want to shut down a few centres, rural facilities are the easiest targets, and mothballing allows them to get it done.

The most recent, and probably the most transparent, example we have found is in Aberdeenshire, where unelected officials are moving to close several nurseries despite the fact that they seem to have healthy enrolment numbers.

No consultation whatsoever was carried out with affected families and communities – instead, local people were simply informed that some faceless bureaucrats were shutting down their nursery and there was nothing they could do about it.

There is also no attempt to claim, however spuriously, that this closure is motivated by concerns about the education on offer to........

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