16 FEBRUARY 1991, Page 24

Nursery need

Sir: Alexandra Artley is quite right to ask publicly (Letters, 9 February) of the Governors of the Thomas Coram Founda- tion precisely the question that the parents and staff at the nursery have been asking for several months without obtaining any adequate reply.

The local King's Cross community, which I have been part of for 35 years, is quite clear that the Foundation provides a major resource for its children that is not likely to be replaced if the nursery closes.

What alarms us is that the present board of governors simply does not realise how scarce that resource is in this area, and is apparently willing to sacrifice our chil- dren's real and immediate needs for some- thing as yet unidentified in order to boost the national prestige of the Foundation.

As a parent of a five-year-old child who received an excellent pre-school education from the nursery I call upon the governors to look again at the devastating effect that closing the nursery will have on the fami- lies in this area.

L. Swanton

32 Calthorpe Street, London WC1

'If! were you I'd give the Gulf a miss.'