Almost £4m could be spent in Dundee on further work on the near doubling of young children’s entitlement to early learning and childcare.
Councillors will be asked to approve a tender to build a new single-storey nursery school at Caird Avenue.
Entitlement to free early learning and childcare is increasing from 600 hours to 1140 hours for all three and four-year olds, as well as eligible two-year olds.
Stewart Hunter, convener of Dundee City Council’s children and families service committee said: “Bringing forward this tender demonstrates our further commitment to delivering nursery buildings in the city that create capacity for more of our children in a learning environment that is bright, modern and accessible.
“The children who are the focus of this expansion in provision will have some of the most up to date and tailor-made facilities we can offer and I can see no better way that we could give them the best possible start on their education.”
A report to the policy and resources committee next week (September 28) asks for approval for a £3.79m tender lodged by Robertson Construction Group, to build a single-storey nursery school with a total area of around 860 square metres.
The new building will have capacity for 104 FTE children between the ages of two and five.
Work is expected to start later this month and be completed in time for the start of term next August.
Dundee City Council
Dundee draws skilled workers from a 60-minute catchment population of 640,000 and has a local population of over 140,000. The availability of a large pool of highly skilled labour is a key feature in the Dundee economy. Flexibility in the labour force is currently more prevalent in Dundee than in Scotland as a whole. All forms of labour market flexibility - part-time, temporary employment, self-employment and shift work - are widely operational within the city. Labour force stability in the city is excellent, enabling companies to plan with confidence. Labour turnover levels are less than 5% and absenteeism averages 2%.
