A NURSERY has reviewed its security after a two-year-old boy was found wandering in the car park by his parent, yards from a main road.
Leaders of the private Salesbury Pre-School Nursery have vowed to double up staff to prevent any repeat of the incident and said they were devastated the youngster was allowed to get out unattended.
Today the parents of two-year-old Adam Grimshaw said their son could have been killed.
The Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) has now launched an investigation to see if any rules have been breached and could make a unannounced visit to the nursery.
Adam was discovered in the car park of the nursery, at Salesbury Memorial Hall, off Ribchester Road, Wilpshire, by parents Anthony and Jean on Monday afternoon, when they went to pick him up.
Mrs Grimshaw, 41, herself a registered childminder, said: "We pulled into the car park to find Adam walking around.
"At that time the car park was very busy with all the parents picking up their children, and he could so easily have been knocked down.
"The main road is only yards away and anything could have happened. The consequences don't bear thinking about."
Adam has since been pulled out of the nursery and his parents -- who sent four-year-old daughter Katie to the same nursery -- insisted he will not return.
Mrs Grimshaw said: "All our confidence with the nursery has gone. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw Adam in the car park. We could even have knocked him down."
Nursery leaders Gail Singleton and Ann Green have apologised to the family and wrote them a letter blaming a "momentary lapse in concentration" by a member of staff for allowing Adam to walk out, which they recognised as "a potentially dangerous situation."
At the nursery yesterday, which currently caters for 25 pre-school children, Mrs Green said it was the first safety concern of any kind in a 20-year history.
Staff held their own inquiry and vowed that security measures would be strengthened so it would never be repeated.
Until the incident, two staff would be on duty while parents collected their children -- one to look after the only door in and out of the nursery and one to be on hand to answer parents' queries.
That will now be doubled to four.
Mrs Green said: "We are absolutely devastated that anything like this could happen, we are just so thankful Adam is safe. Four of our six staff will now be looking after the door.
"We can't apologise enough and we will make sure it will never happen again."
The Government has laid down 14 standards which must be met by providers of childcare, such as private nurseries.
Ofsted, which enforces these regulations, said two of them include the health and safety of the youngsters plus the security of the premises.
A spokesman said it could not comment on individual cases but added that in general terms, nurseries could be ordered to implement new measures to a strict deadline.
The spokesman said the incident was "unusual but not unique."
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