Parents face a desperate search for childcare and staff have been left jobless after the announcement a nursery will close its doors before the new year.

Abbeyfields Nursery, which opened in 1985, sent out a letter to parents to announce its imminent closure.

Parents have been left mortified at the short notice and, as of December 31, will no longer be able to take their children there.

The letter says the closure is for just three months but staff have been handed a redundancy notice with immediate effect.

Hannah Perkin, 30, whose two-year-old son is at Abbeyfields, now faces the same problem as parents of the other 52 children – finding a nursery in just two weeks.

Hannah has to go back to work in January and has found one other childcare service in Faversham taking on new children.

Hannah, of Caslocke Street, said: “After a negative Ofsted report earlier this year, the nursery has turned itself around.

“It’s been really nice to have the children there. Staff have been brilliant, building up relationships. It is going to be difficult to find somewhere at that standard.”

An Ofsted report in August said the nursery needed improvement.

As it is a privately-owned business, KCC declined to comment on the closure but has urged parents to get in touch if they are looking for a nursery.

Town councillor Trevor Payne (Lab) said: “Having reliable childcare is essential for many families and any sudden changes make life difficult for them.

“If this refurbishment was planned, parents and staff should have been informed and plans put in place well in advance.

“I am concerned this appears not to have been the case and also that there is no mention of the closure, temporary or permanent, on the Abbeyfields website.”

A statement from the owners said they had encountered a number of problems in running the nursery, including the departure of some key staff, a poor Ofsted report and growing debts.

It said: “Monthly turnover was never enough to pay our staff, let alone buying the things required to improve facilities.

“We were able to get a lender for the improvements needed to restore the nursery and return it to profitability.

“The only option was to close down temporarily and use the loan to improve the nursery rather than paying salaries while facilities continue to deteriorate.”

“Ofsted has been informed and we are confident we will meet all their requirements and even surpass them when we reopen in the second quarter of year 2015.”