Comments were misleading

While this is true, the comments attributed to John Whitehouse are misleading. The Spring Playgroup’s financial position is no different than it has always been, but the preschool was not in a position to have its rent doubled.

I am the honorary treasurer of the Spring Playgroup, and have been present at the formal meetings during which our licence was discussed. By saying we can “no longer afford to pay an economic rent” (my italics) Mr Whitehouse implies that the Playgroup’s position has changed. It hasn’t; rather, the “change” is that theKenilworthCentre told us that for them to remain viable they need us to pay twice the current rent for the space we use and the hours we use it. We are not in a position to dispute their calculations, but this came as quite a shock, because what we currently pay is in line with what we were paying to Warwickshire County Council (adjusted for inflation) before the centre was taken over by a trust. In fact, the same trustees at the centre recalculated our rent less than a year before they dropped this bombshell, to reflect the fact that we mutually agreed to reduce the area which the playgroup exclusively uses, and there was no indication then that they needed us to be paying a lot more.

Secondly, in the interest of balance, I would like to point out that our own research shows that what we pay now is more than most preschools in the area for comparable space. It is not really for Mr Whitehouse to tell your readers what the playgroup can and cannot afford, but if he must do so, words such as “are not currently in a position to contemplate paying double the current rent” may not have provoked the reaction he has engendered.