THE curtain has sadly come down on the Shannon Bradshaw Community Centre cafe at Penketh due to spiralling running costs.
The cafe, set up to help support the Shannon Bradshaw Trust, has closed, but the charity will continue to operate.
Trustee Patti Bradshaw, who set up the charity and community centre in memory of her young daughter said: “It is with a very sad and heavy heart that we have come to the decision (as Trustees) to close the Community Centre. With the rising costs of food and utility bills and lack of funding, it is impossible to keep our heads above water. We were very fortunate to receive some funding from Warrington Borough Council’s Chief Executive Steven Broomhead to keep us going over the Christmas period but sadly this has run out.
“It didn’t help when the Conservative club next door fenced off their car park and our customers had nowhere to park. It did become a pay and display but many of our customers are elderly and didn’t know how to operate the machine and when they did they still got a fine through the post so it put them off visiting the centre altogether.
“It’s been a wonderful experience sharing the building with the police and getting to know the local councillors, we’ve had lots of support from all of our customers (which I might add are all devastated) and we’ve made some wonderful friends. But with the way things are at the moment there just isn’t enough funding to go around.
“It seems ironic that we should win the “Best Charity Community Centre/cafe out of Manchester and the North-West award and now we have to close but applying for funding is getting harder all the time as so many charities out there need support.
“But we’ve had an amazing 10 and a half years serving the community with afternoon teas, family fun days, OAPs Monday club, bingo days and our amazing Christmas parties, and much more.
“If someone came along next week with a big cheque we would love nothing more than to stay open! But sadly all things come to an end and this is the end of our wonderful community centre.
Patti added: “We are will still be running The SHANNON BRADSHAW TRUST our Children’s charity 1113368 helping children with life-threatening conditions. We are in the process now of sending a beautiful little girl called Isla aged 6 years along with her parents to make memories in Disneyland Paris this month.
“So from everyone at The Shannon Bradshaw Community Centre we would like to say a massive THANK YOU to all our wonderful customers for their amazing support over the years. We will miss each and every one of you.”
3 Comments
The Conservative Club should be ashamed. This café was used by young mums with their offspring, the elderly, and everyone in between. Not just for meals but as somewhere to find a little company in difficult times. (But their breakfasts were second to none.) The CC car park is deserted during the day, the Conservative Association should take a leaf out of the Woodies book and allow their car park to be used by the community. I was disgusted when it happened and I’m even more disgusted now.
Typical Conservative attitude ,” I’m.alright Jack ”
They should be ashamed.
What was the harm in sharing their carpark ?
Sorry you are having to close . Such a loss to the area and the community.
Fully agree at these times when there are very few places and venues to accommodate charitable events like the Sharon Bradshaw Trust do is beyond belief .
As the previous writer states all the conservative club are after is the precious income from car parking fees .
You ought to be ashamed of yourselves