A nursery set up to encourage parents to return to work has yet to enrol a single child - despite having been open for almost two weeks.

Maidendale Community Nursery, on the Firthmoor estate in Darlington, cost £336,000 to build - £97,000 of which came from the National Lottery's New Opportunities Fund (NOF).

NOF will subsidise the nursery, which is in the estate's new community centre, with another £280,000 over the next three years.

The purpose-built nursery opened on March 29 and employs eight people, including a manager and deputy manager.

It has 52 places for children aged three months and over. So far, only one parent has indicated to the nursery manager a definite intention to take a child there. Staff are hoping the ten-month-old boy will start on May 1.

The facility is one of a new type of Neighbourhood Nurseries set up by the Government to support families in disadvantaged areas.

The organisation originally meant to run the nursery - Firthmoor Association for Community Enterprise - was wound up at the end of March, which led to a delay in it being marketed.

Childcare Enterprise, of North Shields, took over and had to open last month to secure the NOF funding.

Nursery manager Glenis Thomas said: "We weren't ready. It was a paper exercise to get the funding. It's only just now that the nursery feels ready for us to take children."

Neighbourhood manager Sally Forth said: "We created it because a lack of affordable childcare was seen as a bar to people working on the estate.

"I'd be worried if they didn't have any children in three months and then six months but I'm not worried at this stage."

Jan Kidd, regional childcare manager for Childcare Enterprise, said: "We only took over the contract in January and we have bent over backwards to get this nursery open.

"We have done some extra marketing this week to get the children in."

An NOF spokeswoman said: "We are confident that the nursery will provide significant benefit to the community in the long-term and that the places will start to fill up in the next couple of months."

Empty nest - Page 10