A rural Stirling nursery is to be permanently closed after councillors heard at times only one child attended.
However, young children in future could face a journey of 16 miles in either direction to access alternative nurseries.
Stirling Council’s children and young people committee decided earlier this year to undertake a formal consultation on the permanent closure of Crianlarich Nursery from August 2025.
And last week members now voted unanimously – but “with regret” – to the doors closing for good.
While the closure is expected to make staff savings of £110,000 per annum plus an additional saving of £2,000 per annum for maintenance, repairs and energy, council officers said falling numbers, projected numbers and recruitment issues were also behind their recommendation.
The nursery provides early learning and childcare for children aged 2-5 in the village and surrounding areas.
While registered with the Care Inspectorate to provide 16 places for children aged 0-5 years, historically a significant percentage of children who accessed the nursery were said to have been cross boundary children resident in Argyll and Bute Council.
The roll of the nursery since 2018-19 has been: six Stirling children and five Argyll and Bute children in 2018-19 – 11 in total; four Stirling and seven A&B children in 2019-20 – 11 in total; two Stirling and two A&B children in 2020-21 – four in total; three Stirling and two A&B in 2021-22 – five in total; two Stirling and two A&B in 2022-23 – four in total; and two Stirling children and no A&B children in 2023-24 – a total of just two.
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Updated information provided at the committee meeting suggested that there would be two children in 2025, three in 2026 and no children in 2027, although it was accepted these numbers could change with families moving in and out of the area.
The nursery premises are attached to the Crianlarich Primary School building but operated separately.
From March 2023 there has been a critical staffing recruitment issue in the Crianlarich area, with vacant posts remaining unfilled. In order to continue to provide a service to children attending Crianlarich Nursery, a temporary amalgamation of Crianlarich and Killin nurseries was put in place from March 6, 2023, with Crianlarich children attending Killin Nursery for their funded entitlement to ELC.
However, that is now to become a permanent arrangement.
At a committee meeting last Thursday members unanimously agreed to close the Crianlarich nursery – and to include a suggestion by Conservative councillor for Trossachs and Teith ward, Martin Earl, that the current two existing and five potential attendees of the nursery continue to receive support for transportation to Killin Nursery beyond August 2025.
However, there is to be no “open ended commitment” to transport provision beyond those seven children over concerns it could set a precedent across the council’s entire nursery estate, with Councillor Earl agreeing that would be “unsustainable”.
He added: “We are removing an existing facility that those parents at this time could reasonably expect their children to have attended. Once others move into the area they will know there is no facility.”
While officials had reported that methods such as Demand Responsive Transport could get the children to the nursery, SNP councillor Gene Maxwell expressed concerns saying that DRT in the Killin area was “effectively nil” and that there was currently no effective public tranpsort in Crianlarich beyond a train service to Glasgow.
He added: “The logic behind this closure is pretty much inevitable but let’s not pretend there are any sensible public transport routes.”
SNP councillor Brian Hambly raised the issue of “rural isolation”, however officials said they could not give a specific definition.
Religious representative on the committee Colin O’Brien, a former Stirling provost, was among those who raised concerns about general decline in rural communities amid councils and other organisations facing pressures including recruitment.
While accepting the closure decision, he added: “I live in a rural village…in the time I’ve lived there – 40 years – we have lost a post office, a bank, two shops, a library, a hotel, a garage, almost a village hall, two primary schools.”
Councillor Maxwell said “at the top level” planners in the national park and council had to “stop thinking that holiday homes are the answer to everything rural” because “it’s going to get to the point that that nice cafe you want to visit on your holiday, there’s no one to actually brew the tea”.