This story in today’s Trumpet of Truth (South Wales Echo) is about a nursery school in Penarth, South Wales, who use the cabin as an extra classroom for the tots are being told to tear it down by Vale of Glamorgan Council.

Photo :Media Wales / Picture by Andrew Davies

CHILDREN have launched a campaign to save their nursery’s play cabin after planners ordered it to be torn down.

The wooden cabin, in the grounds of St Aubin nursery in Archer Road, Penarth, was built last July.

Nursery owner Sue Evans claims she was told at the time that the structure did not require planning approval. It has been used as an outdoor classroom ever since.

But Vale of Glamorgan council planners have now decided the cabin breaches conservation area planning rules and will have to be demolished.

Jodie Evans, a manager at the nursery, said there was confusion over when the nursery was included in the conservation area. But she said that, in any event, the cabin was not obtrusive and had not sparked any complaints, except from the planners.

“The classroom plays a crucial role in the children’s learning and is in line with the Welsh Assembly Government’s foundation phase of education which encourages outdoor learning,” she said.

“Yet we have been told to take it down because the wood does not match the red brick of the nursery building and is therefore out of character in the conservation area. It’s hard to see what the problem is when you consider that it’s built on the site of our former, smaller cabin.”