The transformation follows the building’s purchase last year, by Lancashire businessman Edgar Wallace, who is understood to have family connections to the school.
The deal has swelled the Safehands portfolio to 15 – a rapid expansion from just three settings, five years ago.
Safehands Nursery at Out Rawcliffe, in the Over Wyre area of Lancashire, will employ ten to 20 members of staff and offer places to around 60 children from babies to aged five.
It boasts its own woodland and pond, complete with resident owl, where the group plans to run a ‘forest school’.
Safehands managing director Paul Manning said, ‘We’ve already recruited a manager and a deputy manager from the local area. Local knowledge is important.
‘Edgar has carried out a full refurbishment of the premises.
'Safehands will be renting the building.
‘We will be fitting the nursery out with furniture, toys and equipment.
‘One of the things we’re starting to roll out within Safehands is the forest schools approach.
‘We have our own wood with an owl in it. I think the children will like that.'
Despite the failure of the primary school and widely-reported bars to expansion, such as under-funding, Mr Manning said he was confident the venture would be a success.
‘The smaller ones are the ones currently struggling in the current market,’ he added.
‘We are acquisitive and tend not to go for anything lower than 50 place nurseries.’
Mr Manning described Mr Wallace, who runs successful recycling company Preston Plastics, as a ‘canny businessman’ who had ‘obviously done his homework’, as Safehands had been looking for premisies in the area for some time.
This was particularly as he had beaten Safehands to make the purchase, with a view to childcare being provided at the site.
There was a pressing local need for high quality nursery places, added Mr Manning.
Whilst the setting is likely to start with a low occupancy Mr Manning said he expects this to climb quickly during the first year of operation reaching levels of 60 per cent.
The nursery will offer the free entitlement, as with all its settings, to children aged two to four.
The Out Rawcliffe primary school, in Crooke Gate Lane, opened in 1847 and was run by the Blackburn Anglican Diocese until dwindling pupil numbers, prompting a consultation on its future in 2012.
It finally closed with just four pupils on the roll in July 2013, despite a campaign to save it by parents who were expecting housebuilding to boost the local population in the near future.
Safehands owner Simon Rigby, who struck the deal with his friend Mr Wallace, described it as an ‘opportunity that was too good to miss’.
‘It’s a perfect location and well known by the local community,’ he said.
The Blackpool-based company, which was established in 1998, runs settings across Lancashire, Cheshire, and Tameside.
