Piplings nursery

[simonethebeaver]

I am astonished and depressed at the action of the Residents' Association. We were due to be parents at the nursery and also are about to move to the area. Now we have lost our lovely nursery, which was the only reason I was feeling remotely prepared to go to work, and are worried about moving to a place so negative about children. When we visited the nursery it was summer and most of the toddlers were in the garden. The noise level was no more than any house with small children. The posters on SE23 complaining about the nursery before it even opened sound to be thoroughly unpleasant individuals.

We feel awful for the Piplings owners and have our fingers crossed we'll be able to use their ED branch, if the same calm and caring ethos is on offer.

[alice]

when children are having fun - they make a noise - 2 or 3 can make quite a racket - 24 - well do the maths - and outdoor play / learning should be a major part of any good nursery - so not a matter of a 15 min break twice a day but then one man's charming chortle could be another's nightmare. but that's it from me

[Norfolkvillas]

Just adding my voice in support of Piplings - as a parent on the waiting list for both sites (lucky for me that they are both within practical distance of me), I really do think it's a shame that a nursery whose principles and credentials are an asset to the area have been put in this situation.

Pipling, is there somewhere else (more official) we should register our support of you?

[bluesuperted]

Wow, some people really hate children don't they?

What a sad indictment of our society.

Total aside: My dad sent me an email this week saying he was feeling nostalgic for times past and so opened a window so he might hear the nearby playground at our old primary school better. A slightly more community- (and joie de vivre) minded outlook.

Another aside (!): A friend of mine just sold her townhouse in more-central-than-we-are South London for ?1.2m. Nursery in the house next door. I never once heard a peep when visiting.

[Monkey]

Just read the planning application and this is actually a detached house we're talking about. Aren't a lot of ED nurseries in terraced houses? Or semi-detached? I am thinking Mother Goose on Upland Road and Waveney Avenue for example? I would have thought a detached house would be absolutely the perfect setting for a nursery, THE kind of house where change of use would happily be granted. I think it's possibly something that could be raised with local mps. If a detached house can't become a nursery, then where the heck are nurseries supposed to set up shop?

Just like norfolfvilla, happy to help you in any way I can.

[Browncoffee]

Just thought I'd add my view, given my daughter is at Piplings and will be moving to the ED one shortly.

I second Laurence's comments and cannot rate Piplings highly enough. I spent a significant amount of time there, when I settled my daughter in late last year and most certainly didn't hear screaming children, let alone 24 of them! I have also not hear them at drop offs, pick ups etc, even on those occasions when I do them at the non-popular times.

Having personally had experience of neighbours who have clearly nothing better to do with their time and are unable to mind their own business, I'm not overly shocked that the nursery (which is outstanding by all standards) has had to go through this unfair process. What I find ludricrous is that there is a judge out there that has allowed this closure to go ahead, despite lack of expert evidence to show that the children have been causing an "awful nuisance" to the said neighbours.

As with other parents of Piplings children, I'm more than happy to provide any support that could help Piplings in this matter and continue to wish the nursery the best of luck, wherever they may be.

BC

[toomuchchocolate]

My son attends Piplings. It is a detached house with an enclosed garden, unlike (as Monkey mentions) Mother Goose and many other nurseries in the area which are in Terraced houses.

Piplings are permitted to have up to 24 children at the nursery, but I believe the owners have always chosen to run it under capacity to ensure they maintain the fantastic family environment they have achieved. Recognised by their outstanding Ofsted report as well as by the support they are receiving from parents with children at the nursery.

I believe these members of TLERA have pursued the owners of Piplings as if it were a witch-hunt, carried away with their own single minded objective. In a desperate attempt to show a new nursery was not required in the area they contacted other nurseries and found they all had places available for their imaginary children within a week or two of calling...i would love to know which nurseries they called because when i was looking for a place for my one year old so i could return to work, all i found were long waiting lists or very poor quality childcare on a main road. Thankfully i found Piplings as they opened the doors. Piplings is a nursery that parents dream of finding, with a fantastic philosophy and a great environment for children to be in - a home from home for your most valuable little one that gives a parent the confidence to return to work, which most of us have to.

Without the restrictive covenant TLERA residents main objections seem to be the extra noise of car doors being closed and the noise of children playing in the garden, which isn't 8-6pm as they (the objectors) would have everyone believe. I thought one of the joys of being alive was meant to be the sound of children playing - i guess not.

TLERA residents have done a huge disservice to the local community - parents and non-parents. Piplings provides work for local residents. Piplings allows local parents to return to work with the confidence that our precious children are being well cared for in a safe environment.

If they want to live in a silent world with no outside disturbances and no children nearby playing and laughing, why, oh why, are these people living in London? Sigh...

[dulwichgirl2]

Browncoffee, don't be silly - the judge had to enforce a clearly existing covenant.

The issue here is that the owners should have consulted widely in advance as I think they did actually. They should have got councillors and the MP on board and they should have had petitions, organised articles and photos in local press etc. They should remind the objectors even now that it is in their financial interests to drop it.

It is all a great shame.

Actually some ofthe se23 posts were so evil and cold it frightened me for the children.

[Browncoffee]

The judge prematurely closed the case, disallowing the future presentation of expert evidence which would most probably have resulted in a fairer outcome.

Regardless of who is to blame - neighbours, TLERA residents that were involved or the judge, the point is this has all been unfair and we hope Piplings come out on top one way or another.

[CBRoad]

It seems that it was less of a TLRA issue and more of a few individuals using the Association as a front. I bet the members of the TLRA know nothing of the case and would be horrified to know that they are inadvertently being used for such a (dare I say) nasty vendetta.

I don?t have kids and don?t plan to in the near future but I can sympathise with the parents. I know that having to settle a little one into a new environment can be stressful all round. I would happily sign something to keep the Piplings going. We should be praising the lady who runs it for providing the community with such needed child care

I would happily swap my awful neighbours for 24 + small children screaming or otherwise between the hours of 7.30am-6.30pm.

[Browncoffee]

Would swap my neighbour too! Maybe we can swap and have them live next to each other?

[CBRoad]

With pleasure!

[ClareC]

Interesting these people still have not posted their reasons. Certainly appears vexatious.

Why anyone would want to remove the income of a small family and significantly effect numerous other families is beyond me. let alone potentially put all those other businesses out if business.

Totally understand the Court are tied to uphold the law, is the covenant 'owned' just by the neighbours? Surely it must owned by others too.

I have no link to the nursery whatsoever, however, I did view it with the intention of my daughter joining when it first opened. It reslly was lovely, the only nursery of the ones I had seen at that stage I was comfortable leaving her in. There were no screaming children and it was peaceful! I ended up not gong back to work as I fell pregnant with number two so we never ended up needing the nursery place.

I find it hard to believe there is genuinely any issue with noise.

If there is anything we can do to help do let us know, seems so sad, I really feel for the many people effected.

[oimissus]

would it be worth everyone emailing the chairman of the TLERA, so they realise the depth of people's unhappiness at this decision? I have no connection either to the area or this nursery but it all seems pretty awful to me and I'd be happy to add my name to any list of objectors. As others have said, comments on the SE23 forum have been pretty vicious. As I understand it a lot of these residents are of long standing and are perhaps of the older generation, but they are not living in a retirement village (perhaps they should?!), whatever they think - they are living in London, FFS!

[ClareC]

Agree that is a good idea, does anyone know the relevant names / contact details?

[michael_FH]

If you do wish to contact TLERA the chairman's email is [email protected]. I don't think the views of East Dulwich residents will have much impact on TLERA, which is set up to represent the houses on the Horniman hill. But their is no reason why you should not contact them to express your views on the lovely nursery in their area.

As a Piplings parent I would like to thank EDF posters for their positive messages. It is a great nursery that we felt was exactly what we wanted for our daughter (for anybody's daughter). After our daughter started they got a perfect OFSTED inspection, with ouststanding in all 17 areas, and this reaffirmed our judgement that this nursery is something special.

[walkinthepark38]

It is great to see that our East Dulwich community takes such an interest. We spent several months researching nurseries in the ED area; the good ones had full waiting lists and the others we saw didn't make me feel I could go back to work without worrying about the welfare and happiness of my little son, who really needs a family environment, not an institution at this stage.

We were then tipped off about Piplings having opened by a mum on the playground, who said that what kept them from moving out of Forest Hill to a cheaper place was that they had found this amazing nursery for their child. She said Piplings was run like a loving family home and that it promoted her daughter's development and happiness in every way. Music to my ears!! -

She had not promised too much. Our son has been there for more than a year now and we could not be happier. The owners of Piplings have a very strong and wonderful vision about what nursery and pre-school childcare can be in our today lives, and how it can enrich the whole family. Piplings nursry doesn't feel like institutional childcare at all, it feels like one big happy family which has great role models to lead it. Our son is brimming with confidence and joy.

I've also noticed that Emma and Philip (the owners) are doing some fantastic staff development, creating a strong team of men and women who are as passionate as they are about looking after the children. It is the love, care and attention to detail that I found different from many other places I've seen. It is clear to me that they are spearheading best practice in childcare and are raising the standards of excellence in this field. So I hope that with all our support, they will get through the current location issues and ultimately open more nurseries in our part of London. It would be most positive for our neighbourhoods and family lives.

[bucina]

I echo your thoughts walkinthepark38. We live in East Dulwich and when my wife was expecting, we searched hard for a good Nursery. We looked around at about 15-20 of them, but quickly realised that the few good Nurseries in E D and Forest Hill had closed their waiting lists 'for the foreseeable future' (!) We joined some other waiting lists but were surprised by the poor levels of care, and so considered a move from the area. It was clear that the many Nurseries open to us had failings such as unmotivated workers with bored-looking children, or small rooms with too many children, or nearly no outdoor space, or a weekly diet of frozen food 'burgers for lunch'. Through word of mouth, we found out about the 'amazing' Piplins Nursery. On our 1st visit to Piplins Nursery, we realised that there is another way of running a Nursery(!) Their wonderful home and family approach is the way they should all be run. The owners depth of skill and experience has created something beyond Montessouri and other modern approaches. Perhaps one day people will be buying a book published by them entitled 'How to create the blissful Nursery.' Our son loves going there, and is developing into a well rounded little man, full of confidence.

[JSy]

There is no doubt that if this nursery has to close, the parents will have to look for nursery places in East Dulwich which will impact on available spaces for ED residents. The waiting lists in both areas already demonstrate just how much Piplings Forest Hill is needed by the wider local community.

Please support this local family run business that does nobody any harm and provides an outstanding service to local families.

[sglanzer]

As a resident of the Tewkesbury Lodge Hill and recently joined member of the residents' association, I think this raises very important issues about who the TLRA are actually representing and how. Many of the people living on the hill are members of the Association, probably mostly because it gives access to a very good Nov 5 display, but they do not appear to have made any attempts to consult the membership, most of whom are, I suspect, very much in sympathy with the nursery.

The hill is full of families with kids who would I'm sure wish to see this kind of scarce and high quality provision flourish. So it seems really important to me that those of us who are members of the TLRA and whose views are allegedly represented by them should follow Michael's advice above and write to them objecting to the course they have followed and also questioning how they have they have decided on this without any local consultation. Email lists, local forums etc. should make it easy to consult local people about important decisions - they don't appear to attempt to do this.

[HR]

Just reading these posts. My child has been at the nursery from the age of 13 months and is nearly 2.5 years of age now. We are having to move to the new site because we are left with little option at such short notice. I hunted for a nursery whilst on maternity leave and was glad to find this new nursery with a different approach to child are; I.e setting up within a home to provide a family atmosphere. Let me just say that these intolerant neighbours who prioritise their enjoyment of their gardens and are protective of their PUBLIC access roads, show no community spirit, are anti-enterprise. if a doctors surgery, or a solicitors or indeed a dentist opens up in that property they would be able to do nothing about the increase in traffic congestion and noise. Using a restrictive covenant from the 1920's to close this nursry bears little relevance to society's changing needs and I hope this will be modified in due course to allow another nursery to open on the same site in the future. Let's also hope that the local residents' associatin

[HR]

Sorry, a continuation from my previous post...let's hope the local residents'association do not declare they are proud of their actions in this matter as the reasons behind this action are dubious to say the least.

[toomuchchocolate]

As a parent with a small child at Piplings in Forest Hill, i am absolutely horrified to learn that the anti-nursery neighbours are now harrassing parents. Today i have been told that one parent was approached by a neighbour who was filming him and his young child, without their consent, as he arrived to drop his son off to nursery, because he had parked outside his property, on the road, where he is legally permitted to park!

Not only are they now harrassing parents, they are now frightening the children and starting to cross the boundaries of the law. I am sickened by this latest act and believe it's neither the first or only time it's happened.

[Pugwash]

I am afraid that many resident associations are run by people who have very narrow views and a dismissive of others.Some of these RA have tyrants as chairpersons and others are intimidated by them. By the sound of this particuliar group - they are 'bully boys'. It would be interesting if they get any funding from lewisham council to run activities i.e. 5th Nov fireworks. I certainly feel that Piplings or better still a Pipling parent should be contacting the media as well as the councillor or MP covering that part of Forest Hill

[ClareC]

Definitely contact the press.