Flooded nursery says thanks

The ground floor play gym at Water’s Edge Children’s Day Nursery, on Park Road, was not affected but everything in the nursery on a lower level was destroyed when the River Calder burst its banks.

Owner Joanne Wood and her team were able to use the gym space to accommodate the nursery children and the decision has been taken to close the play gym and permanently relocate the nursery on the ground floor.

Joanne said: “We are obviously devastated that we will have to lose the play gym but we just couldn’t face going through what we have, again.

“To see 14 years of hard work wiped away by the floods was utterly soul destroying.At the moment, we have relocated our baby room and staff to premises very close by, thanks to Gareth Henderson at Orchard Environmental who has kindly provided space for us, and it’s so close that we are able to offer the same extremely high standards of care there as we did here.”

Joanne said the response from the Elland community had been “overwhelming” and there were many people she wished to thank.

She said: “We were inundated with offers of help. People were donating toys, stopping their vans as they drove by to help, bringing us food and refreshments – people have been absolutely amazing. People came along and gave their time, taking on really difficult and, at times, dirty jobs such as shovelling away the mud, and for that we are eternally grateful. The community has been unbelievable. People we didn’t know were turning up to help on foot and with their vans – it was overwhelming. “

People brought kettles, bottled water, food, toys and cleaning equipment. One family from London insisted on stopping by on their way home with donations.

Joanne added: “And of course our nursery families both past and present have been amazing, bringing us toys and getting stuck into jobs such as ripping up the floors. We had a lot of offers of help, support and donations of equipment from the three nurseries in Elland, as well as a couple in Brighouse. It was really touching that they all reached out to help us.”