“Anything is better than nothing”: What will actually fix Skipton’s childcare crisis?

A Skipton mother driving almost an hour round trip to Beaufort for childcare says local parents have reached the point where “anything is better than nothing”, as debate grows over how the town’s early years services should expand.

What’s going on: Corangamite Shire Council voted on April 28 to renovate and expand the existing childcare facility on Montgomery Street. To do so, it applied for funding through Victoria’s state government Education Department to add a modular building on the site to make more room.

• The move was aimed at meeting the Victorian Government’s incoming kindergarten reforms, which require local governments to offer 25 hours of funded four-year-old kindergarten by 2029, increasing to 30 hours by 2031.

Childcare desert: Council documents describe Skipton as a “childcare desert”, with just 0.537 childcare places available per child. It also acknowledges the ongoing challenges the town faces with attracting more childcare staff to work.

Better than nothing: Local parent Laura Liston said while many families would have preferred a larger integrated childcare and community hub, most were now simply desperate to see action after years of searching for a solution.

• “From a parent’s point of view, we just want something, anything for our children,” Liston told the Brolga. “But if it’s not on the cards, we’ll be happy with whatever council can come up with for us.'“

Headaches: Liston has two sons, three-year-old Hugh and 10-month-old Sydney, and says the current childcare situation has made returning to work extremely difficult.

• Hugh attends childcare in both Skipton and Beaufort because Skipton only offers care two non-consecutive days a week.

“It’s unfortunate that we actually have to drive to Beaufort, because it’s more like an hour round trip for us to do so, rather than 10 minutes for us to get into Skipton”, she said.“We end up doing our shopping in Beaufort, we go to the doctors in Beaufort, we go to the pharmacy, we get fuel there.

“That economic loss to Skipton, it’s far more than just our kids going to kinder or daycare there.”

Long wait times: Sydney has been on Skipton’s childcare waiting list since he was only weeks old.

• “It took Hugh 18 months to actually even get a place at Skipton,” she said. “Even if I do get Sydney a place and Hugh ends up going to kinder next year, I won't be able to get them in on the same days.”

Council’s fix: The council’s proposition of an extra modular building would introduce a nine-hour-per-day childcare program operating five days a week for 50 weeks of the year, creating 24 extra childcare sessions weekly and adding 33 licensed childcare places.

• But Skipton Community Collective’s Gordon Fyfe said the town needed to think bigger.

Feasibility study: The Community Collective formed in 2023 after at least 26 families reportedly missed out on childcare placements over two years.

• With $50,000 in funding support from both council and Berrybank Wind Farm, the collective commissioned a feasibility study examining the town’s long-term childcare needs.

• Fyfe said the study found council’s modelling underestimated demand because it only considered families within Corangamite Shire, despite many surrounding farming families from Pyrenees and Golden Plains also relying on Skipton’s services.

Tight fit: He said the study also identified limitations with the current Crown land site, where the existing building sits close to title boundaries and expansion options are constrained.

• “Council is recognising it does have to do something that’s going to meet the Best Start, Best Life policy,” Fyfe said. “But if you’re looking for Skipton to actually prosper and be sustainable, it needs bigger facilities.”

Weighing up options: Corangamite Shire mayor Kate Makin said council had considered both the community feasibility study and its own Early Years Plan before deciding to pursue the modular building.

“With the changes of kindergarten, which sees council deliver 30 hours of pre-prep by 2031, it means we just don’t have the room up there,” Makin said. “If we can get the funding to do these buildings, it actually increases the ability to run kindergarten and long-term child care as well.”

Still room to move: Makin said the modular approach would still allow the council to revisit future expansion if needed.

• “I think what we’re doing is making sure that there’s opportunities if we need to expand it in future,” she said. “At the moment, by looking at all the data and what we’ve seen come back, this is the best option going forward.”