New nursery moving into basement of old people’s home

A new pre-school could soon be coming to the Coldhurst area of Oldham. Town planners have granted permission for a nursery to move into the basement floor of Franklin House.

The upper floor of the building, which is the ground floor from Franklin Street, is currently in use as a care home for the elderly. The lower floor, which is accessible from Coldhurst Street, was last in use as a day centre for Age UK. 

But now Rozina Mahmood, a local early years educator, plans to turn the site into a new nursery catering for up to 30 kids. The kids would be spread across four pre-school areas, including a Flower, Butterflies and Rainbow room. 

The nursery will be open from 9am to 3pm on Monday to Friday to prevent noise disturbance to elderly residents.

Mahmood already runs Alexandra Pre-School at the former site of the Owd Kitts pub in Glodwick, which received a ‘good’ rating in its first Ofsted inspection in 2019 but was later closed following a parental complaint in 2020. It was re-registered with Ofsted in January 2025 under improved management. 

The 40-year-old early years practitioner has registered the new nursery at Franklin House under Alexandra Pre-School Coldhurst on Companies House. 

Planners did note that due to a lack of parking facilities, staff at the new nursery will likely have to travel to work on foot and parents picking up and dropping off their kids will ‘need to find a safe and legal place to park’. 

And environmental officers initially flagged concerns that noise from the new pre-school could disturb the elderly residents. But after a site visit and a signed letter from the owner and operator of the care home, they withdrew their objections, concluding the plans were ‘unlikely to cause significant adverse impacts on the care home residents during the daytime’.