ANGRY parents at a Poole pre-school hit by funding cuts are fighting to keep it open.

After 40 years St Clements Pre-school in Parkstone, which has some 30 children, is facing closure after with withdrawal of the “free entitlement funding”.

The Department for Education (DfE) funding provides free pre-school places for under-fives, and is administered by Borough of Poole. Although St Clements has received it for some years, the council has now told parents it was no longer eligible after DfE “raised the bar” in a new code of practice, effective from September.

The council’s new criteria, based on the code of practice, requires pre-schools to be ‘good’ or better. St Clements was judged satisfactory in its last Ofsted.

David Wood, treasurer of the preschool committee, said there was uproar in the area, and “very, very strong feeling” among parents who felt the pre-school was “absolutely superb”.

And he insisted a 12-month agreement with the council, signed in April, stated funding would be received if they were “satisfactory”.

He called for Borough of Poole to honour it – and give them time to replace their pre-school leader, who left recently, and raise standards.

“If the pre-school was so bad – why have we got 20-odd children signed up for September? Why are parents fighting so hard to save it?” he added.

Vicky Wales, head of children and young people’s services, at Borough of Poole, said the council had provided “intensive support” to the pre-school in recent months to help it meet the criteria but it had been “unable to comply”. She added: “Unfortunately, this means that funding to offer free places will no longer be available to the pre-school. The local authority will continue to offer its full support to staff and parents at St Clements.”