Parents win lottery funding to set up new pre-school

A new pre-school is being set up to serve the villages of Limpley Stoke and Freshford.

A committee of local parents has been awarded £3,653 from the Awards for All Lottery Fund to set up the group in Freshford. The funding will cover play and educational equipment, furniture and storage, IT equipment and staff training.

The committee has already raised around £3,000 from other grants, donations and events. It will operate from Freshford Memorial Hall on mornings from Monday to Thursday in term time, with sessions from 9am to 12.30pm, and cater for three- and four-year-olds.

It will open in September, and the committee has appointed Georgina Muxworthy as pre-school leader.

She has been a primary school teacher and deputy head of a special school in Bristol and more recently has run Great Pretenders, a drama group for toddlers and pre-school children in Bath, Bradford on Avon and Frome.

The pre-school is staging an open evening on Wednesday, April 29 at 7.30pm at the Memorial Hall.

Since the closure of the nearest facility last summer, there has not been a pre-school in the catchment area of Freshford Primary School.