An Orpington out-of-school club has been forced to close at the beginning of the school summer holiday following a year of neighbour complaints about the children’s noise.

The Vine Bunch Kidz Club has been based at the Green Street Green Scout’s hall in Highfield Avenue for the past year, after moving from Green Street Green Primary School in Vine Road.

Due to neighbour complaints and planning complications the club was informed it might have to move.

Its attempts to appeal were unsuccessful and it had to close at the beginning of the school summer holidays.

News Shopper:

Staff, parents and children are upset at the closure.

Louise Sullivan, who works at the club, spoke to News Shopper on Thursday, the day before their last day at the Scout hall.

She said: “The parents are up in arms, they’ve got nowhere for their children to go.

“All the parents now have no childcare, the other ones are full, and we haven’t got a job to go to after tomorrow.

"We’ve got regular children and parents who are really pleased with the service we are giving.

“We don’t know what we are going to do, we have been fighting it for a year.

“Children have got a voice as well. They don’t want them hanging about the streets but what are parents supposed to do.

“It is devastating for staff as well. We have all got mortgages to pay, we are parents, we have got children as well.”

News Shopper:

Louise Sullivan works at Vine Bunch Kidz Club.

A planning document from 1983 outlines that Scout hall can be used for a playgroup for children between the ages of three and five, and can only be used Monday to Friday between 9am and 12pm.

The group submitted retrospective planning permission to extend the hours to 7:30am to 12pm and 3pm to 6.30pm during school times Monday to Friday, and to 7.30am to 6:30pm during school holidays Monday to Friday.

Ms Sullivan, 49 from Cray Avenue, added: “We went out there once and they complained, we haven’t used the garden since, they complained every day.

“We just assumed that our jobs would be safe and the children would be safe.

“There’s nowhere round here for children.”

A Bromley council spokesman said: “In the words of the independent Government appointed planning inspector who dismissed the appeal, the site is "within a densely developed residential area and immediately adjoins or is close to the private garden areas of several dwellings" and that the " concentration of outdoor play for up to 24 young children within such a relatively confined area with the inevitable noise of communication and activity that this would bring has the potential to cause serious disturbance to the living conditions of nearby residents.

"It is because of these reasons and others which are outlined in the appeal decision, that the existing permission remains in place, that the hall can be used from 9 a.m. to midday rather than activities starting at 7.30 a.m. and ending at 6.30 p.m. as the application requested."