LA Hougue Bie Tea Rooms has become the latest casualty of the crisis facing the Island’s third sector.
On Friday, Beresford Street Kitchen announced that rising costs and reduced funding were forcing them to close the facility so the social enterprise could remain sustainable.
This follows the closure of mental-health charity the Jersey Recovery College, with the loss of ten jobs, earlier this month, and an appeal last week for funds made by the Butterfly Café, a non-profit venture providing job opportunities and workplace training to Islanders who have experienced abuse.
Now, Beresford Street Kitchen – which provides opportunities for individuals with autism and learning disabilities – will pull out of the tea rooms at La Hougue Bie in November, citing “the rising cost of sales and reducing profits in our social enterprise areas”.
The social enterprise, which was founded in 2015, expanded its Beresford Street operation to La Hougue Bie four years ago, but on Friday confirmed that it was no longer sustainable. It said the step was being taken in response to the financial challenges affecting many charities, with increased costs and decreased funding.
Staff at the tea rooms will be relocated to their Beresford Street headquarters, it has been confirmed.
Beresford Street Kitchen chief executive Gabby Ellmers described their partnership with Jersey Heritage – which runs the La Hougue Bie site under agreement with the Société Jersiaise – as “great” but said that, like many charities, they had been significantly impacted by increased costs and reduced funding.
She continued: “We are also struggling with the rising cost of sales and reducing profits in our social enterprise areas and have taken the decision to close La Hougue Bie Tea Rooms ahead of the winter low season.
“We remain committed to our mission and will continue to provide over 40,000 hours a year of education, training and employment for the 63 crew on our programmes. We will be focusing on our core objectives and on reinvigorating the town café. The decision to close La Hougue Bie Tea Rooms aims to contribute to the sustainability of the charity.”
Ms Ellmers added that they were optimistic that once they had navigated the present challenging times, they would continue to develop their programmes to support people with learning disabilities and/or autistic people to reach their independence and employability goals.
“We would like to thank our supporters and urge people to continue this support by visiting before the closure, popping into Beresford Street Kitchen and using our outside catering and printing services,” she said.
Association of Jersey Charities deputy chair Robert Surcouf last week warned that “lives could be lost” unless the third sector received more government support.
Mr Surcouf said that the impact of the Covid pandemic, compounded by the cost-of-living crisis, had created “very challenging” conditions.
“Many charities provide services to government and indirectly the public and – because they keep their costs low, can raise donations and grants, and often heavily rely on volunteers – they effectively save government and the taxpayer money, but they do need certainty as to funding and that does need to be indexed linked going forward if services are to continue at the same level,” Mr Surcouf said.
Alongside redundancies, the closure of the Jersey Recovery College also affected around 50 volunteers.
In a statement, the charity highlighted that the third sector “has been hit especially hard by increased demands on service, growing costs and reduction in income and donations”.
The Butterfly Café last week said that higher costs were “jeopardising everything we’ve built and all that we’ve achieved”, with founder and chief executive Cheyenne O’Connor saying they were in talks with the government about funding.
A crowdfunding appeal has been launched, while the organisation has also called on Islanders to contact them directly by emailing: cheyenne@thebutterflyeffect.je.
AllMatters Neurodiverse Jersey, a charity which aims to promote understanding and acceptance of neurodiversity, also said last week that it would close its community hub at the end of September due to a lack of funding to secure another property after their building was put up for sale.
The JEP approached the government for a comment on the position affecting the charitable sector but no minister was available by the time of publication.
