Sandhurst contains 1 Long Day Care centre (108 places), while overall provision relative to the local child population appears limited compared to national benchmarks, and is below the Greater Melbourne average. With no preschool/kindergarten services observed in the area, only long day care, the ratio of children per place for the under 5 age group is 2.8 - placing the area among the bottom 30% nationally for supply per child. To meet the Greater Melbourne average 82 new places would be required (LDC+PSK to service the under 5 age group). Meanwhile, projected population decline of 5.8% in the under 5 age group between now and 2041 suggests a reduction in demand for childcare services. Other factors relevant to demand worth noting are high female labour force participation of 68.3%, as well as upper quartile employment and income performance.
Proximity analysis saw distances of local residents to their nearest child care centre being relatively in line with national benchmarks. Another finding worth noting is the low level of commercial activity in the area and assessment of local working populations which suggest many of the local population commute elsewhere for work with nearby services potentially taking some pressure off local child care centres.
4 school catchments intersect Sandhurst (note; school catchment data provided for public schools only), in which a combined 5,253 children aged under 5 reside, served by 3,167 LDC and preschool places. The overall demand-to-supply ratio across these catchments is 1.7 children per place, with limited variance in this ratio. Meanwhile, the discrepancy in this ratio between Sandhurst and the intersecting school catchments highlights the need for a catchment based approach for specific site assessments.