PLANS to open a new infant nursery in Kendal this month have collapsed after a local businesswoman's negotiations for premises fell through, reports Jennie Dennett.

Frances Roberts says mums have been left in the lurch after the owners leasing the Shap Road property she planned to develop as a nursery signed-up with another tenant at the 11th hour.

Mrs Roberts said she understood that lease negotiations with agents Carriget Cowan and the property owners, Kendal builders Cox and Allen, were going well.

She said she did not know there was another bidder.

In anticipation of completing the deal, Mrs Roberts says she had re-mortgaged her home to raise money for the venture, given up her job, gone through the process of registering the nursery with OFSTED, secured planning permission to use the building for a nursery and hired two full-time staff.

She had also advertised the nursery and received inquires for 20 children from mothers she described as "absolutely desperate" after failing to find nursery places elsewhere in Kendal.

But, a week after she expected to sign the lease, Mrs Roberts was informed that Cox & Allen had agreed to let the Victorian building, known as Meadowbank, to another organisation.

"We feel angry and upset," said Mrs Roberts.

However, Gary Davis of Cox and Allen, while expressing sympathy for Mrs Roberts position, was unapologetic for what he called a "purely commercial" decision.

"We notified her agent early in January that there was another party interested in taking the lease and they are no less worthy a tenant.

They offered a longer lease term and more money.

"Nothing is done and dusted until you sign on the bottom line."

Mrs Roberts, and her daughter Helen - a nursery nurse who

was to work at the venture christened Tigger's Place Day Nursery - are now planning to return to their former jobs and start looking for another appropriate property.

"The only aspect that stands is our registration with OFSTED.

We'll have to go through this process of registering another property and applying for change of use.

It's going to be another six months before we can open again."