The City of Duncan has received more than $3 million from ChildCareBC to build a new childcare centre in McAdam Park.
CAO Peter de Verteuil told council at its meeting on April 14 that the provincial grant will enable the city to build a new childcare centre that will be constructed adjacent to the existing preschool/daycare in the park.
He said the new facility will provide 12 spaces for infants and toddlers, and 24 spaces for children aged three to five.
B.C.’s Minister of Education and Child Care Lisa Beare made the funding announcement for 36 new childcare spaces while visiting Duncan on March 25, but the exact amount of the grant and the specifics of what it would be used for were not made available at the time.
The funding from ChildCareBC’s New Spaces Fund is intended to provide new childcare spaces at a new facility which will be operated by the Parkside Academy Child Care Society in conjunction with the City of Duncan.
Once operational, the 36 new child-care spaces will be eligible for the government’s fee-reduction program, ensuring that they will be affordable for families.
Coun. Tom Duncan asked de Verteuil when he expects construction of the new daycare will begin as the childcare spaces are badly needed in the region.
De Verteuil said that when construction will begin has yet to be determined.
“We still have a ways to go that one,” he said. “First, the final designs on engineering have to be completed and there’s still servicing issues, so we have lots of work ahead of us before we can put shovels in the ground.”
More than $62 million is being invested by the province to create more than 750 new licensed child care spaces throughout B.C. through the accelerated space-creation programs.
