PARENTS have been left shocked after a nursery announced it was closing with only a week’s notice.

Littlehaven, based in the Castlehaven community centre in Camden Town, sent out an email on Friday night blaming staffing issues, a shortage of children and rising costs.

A decision was made at a board meeting on Wednesday night, before operations manager Eleanor Botwright told staff and emailed parents on Friday. Eight jobs will be lost.

Chloe Davies, whose 15-month-old son Logan is at the nursery following in the footsteps of his five-year-old sister Riley, said: “I just burst into tears. It’s terribly sad. One of the reasons I was so upset was that we chose it because it is part of the community, it’s a social enterprise and it’s not for profit and all these values that are important to us.

“We’re worrying about the staff. They look after our children so well and our children love them. It’s like a surrogate family that you need because we need to work.”

She added: “To be given a week’s notice is just unfair on parents and staff, we’re having to scrabble around to try and find places.”

Some parents were away on holiday, meaning the scramble began from thousands of miles away. Warwick Goodall, whose four-year-old son Alexander goes to the nursery said: “We’ve managed to get a place at the Royal Free, which is good, but it’s 20 minutes each way. We’re worried for him as he’s not someone who settles so easily. It’s causing huge worry for me and my wife.”

Saori Ferrito, who is mum to two-year-old Reika, said: “I don’t understand if they are running a business why they haven’t got more notice and why they didn’t mention anything earlier. We didn’t have any chance to help.”

Parents praised the care from staff at Littlehaven, which has a baby room and garden, and said it was a loving environment. However, many described chaotic management, which included senior staff leaving without parents being told, emails going unanswered and a hard-to-fathom invoicing system.

Silvia Gallotti, who has a one-year-old at Littlehaven, said: “The communication was awful. We couldn’t get any answers from the management, and if we had any concerns or suggestions it was not possible to speak to them. It meant that people did not get updates they wanted.”

Magen Inon, 39, whose two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Daniella is at Littlehaven, said: “All of those problems are there, but we have kept our children here because has been such a good place.”

Ms Botwright, who got an MBE for her community work in 2017, had run Castlehaven community centre until retiring in 2019, when she handed the reins to current chief executive and her daughter, Tricia Richards. She came out of retirement to help run the nursery in September.

Ms Botwright said: “We are really upset we are having to make this decision. The reason it’s short notice is we can’t keep on digging a hole that we won’t eventually be able to fill in. “Unfortunately we haven’t been able to get the staff. We’ve been feeling the effects of Brexit, a lot of our staff from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean have gone home. We need a certain number to maintain safe staffing but also we couldn’t deliver the quality of care that the children deserve.”

Ms Botwright said Little­haven’s numbers had fallen after children started school in September. There are only 30 children compared to 48 earlier this year.

She added: “The most important thing for me was trying to sort the staffing. There was clearly stuff that needed to be sorted, including the communication, and up until now I have been sorting the back-office stuff.”