Military families strive to save community cafe

Military families have launched a petition to save a community cafe earmarked for closure.

The NAAFI cafe, based at the Princes Gate Shopping Centre in Catterick Garrison, is due to close at the end of January because of rising costs.

It has become a popular meeting place for veterans and their families since it opened less than two years ago.

Regular customer Beki Bulmer, who started the petition, said the cafe had become "such an integral part of this community", adding: "I just thought 'there has to be something we can do'."

NAAFI was originally set up in 1920 by the government as the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes, tasked with running recreation centres for the armed forces.

A hundred years later, the NAAFI organisation - which is independent from the Ministry of Defence - launched cafes to "bring the brand to the high street".

But it has closed outlets in Scarborough, Lancaster and Winchester due to "many financial factors" including rent and operating costs, and the Catterick branch is due to shut on 31 January.

NAAFI said it would, however, support any community bid to take over the running of the cafe.

It said it would donate the facilities and would contribute towards rental costs.

Ms Bulmer has lived in Catterick for 20 years, having moved around a lot with her husband who has served in the Army for 42 years.

She said: "NAAFI is just one of the really positive parts of the military community.

"Everywhere you go, everywhere you move, there is a NAAFI and it's a safe place to go.

"It's a comfortable place to be and it's a place that absolutely and utterly supports all forces families."

Ms Bulmer said when she found out about the closure she felt "absolutely gutted, absolutely devastated for the staff and for the community".

"People use the cafe as a place for their meetings and a place for their group activities and it would just be so lovely if those groups could own it and be involved in the running of it and the longevity of it."

Regular customer Peter Higgins said the cafe in Catterick meant a lot to the veteran community.

"We regularly come here as a group of veterans," he said.

"It gets veterans out of isolation and loneliness and we've now got them talking about health problems.

"If we lose this, how do we encourage veterans to come out and talk, mingle, rather than stay at home because there's nowhere else comparable in the garrison? I just don't know what we will do."

Military wives Amy, Jacqui, Hannah and Steph usually meet up at the cafe once a week and said they were "upset" that the cafe would shut.

"We can fit the kids in here and the staff are all lovely," said Jacqui.

"It's a nice little meeting place rather than going to somebody's house all the time.

"It's nice to get out and have a coffee and a cake."

NAAFI said: "It is no longer economically possible for us to continue operating in Catterick.

"The many financial factors, including rent, business rates, operational costs and rising product costs, mean that the money lost is too vast to continue, however much we would love to keep the facility open.

"NAAFI's main focus is serving our armed forces, and we operate as a business, not a charity, with all our surpluses going back in various ways to support UK armed forces."

But the group added: "We recognise that this presents an exciting opportunity for the cafe to become a community-led facility.

"NAAFI are happy to donate the cafe, with furniture, equipment and decorations included, and we would be prepared to support a proportion of the rental cost."

Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North or tell us a story you think we should be covering here.