April 27, 2012
Highcross has exchanged contracts with Hadland Care Group for a new Tops Day Nursery at the Lakeside North Harbour business park in Portsmouth.
The Bournemouth-based company, which currently operates eleven Tops Day Nurseries across Hampshire, Dorset and Somerset, has signed a fifteen-year lease on the 3,000 sq ft building. Construction is now underway, with the nursery scheduled to open in October this year.
The 60-place nursery will provide care for babies and children from three-months to five years. The building, which will be clad in timber boarding, will benefit from lots of natural light and have a curved grass roof, designed to help it blend in with its surroundings as well as improving energy efficiency.
The Lakeside North Harbour nursery will be Hadland Care Group’s second in Portsmouth. Managing Director, Cheryl Hadland, comments:
“We chose this location because it is a perfect site for people working in the area, especially those based on the expanding Lakeside North Harbour business park, and has the added benefit of a free bus from the local train station. Our nursery at the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth is now reaching capacity and we wanted to open another site close by. The new building will have a natural and neutral decor, to encourage a ‘communication friendly environment’ and provide a great space to display all the children’s work.”
The new nursery, which will be open from 7am-7pm, will have a landscaped garden and there are plans for a second phase of development on the same site, to provide a breakfast, after school and holiday playclub for older children from 5-11 years.
Highcross asset management director, Nick Turner added: “We are delighted to be adding a high quality, flexible day nursery to the excellent facilities already available to companies based at Lakeside North Harbour business park. Our architects, Thorpe Wheatley, have designed a building which makes the most of its location in our landscaped 100-acre site, using natural materials which will be visible inside and outside, as well as a grass roof.”
The first Tops Day Nursery opened in Parkstone, Dorset in 1990, and all nurseries in the group offer the flexibility
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