A NEWPORT playgroup claimed it was evicted from its premises ahead of Newport council plans to set up a nursery nearby.

The owners of Little Acorns playgroup on Fairfax Road say they were given a term’s notice to leave the Pavilion near St Patrick’s RC Primary School shortly before Easter.

More than 45 letters were sent to the council during consultation on plans to create six new nurseries across the city, by parents who did not want Little Acorns to go.

The company says that on March 1 it was given notice to leave by July 19 by the Church of St Patrick, which owns the building.

Owners Carol Reid, 53, and Lynn Rusic, 50, believe they were asked to leave so plans to set up the nursery in the school could go through with no objections.

“There is nowhere else for us to go,” said Mrs Reid, who along with her sister Mrs Rusic ran the not-forprofit playgroup since January 2004.

“It was a verbal agreement with the priest that we could run the playgroup here. Now we have lost our business.”

With the playgroup gone, there will be no provision for children aged two to three, and 12 members of staff have lost their jobs.

Last week the Argus reported that Newport council has moved to a statutory notice period for the plans, and if there are no objections, the council and St Patrick’s governing body could go ahead.

Father Michael McCarthy, parish priest at the Church of St Patrick, said there was a contract between the two parties in place giving one term’s notice, which was arranged by his predecessor last October.

He said: “At the governors’ meeting we did offer to try to find a place for them elsewhere in the area.”