New tenant sought for town's boating lake cafe

The boating lake cafe will be marketed for a new operator but maintaining the gardens and paying gardeners' wages will remain in-house

A new tenant is being sought to operate a seafront cafe and boating lake five years after a £2.7m regeneration.

The Venetian Waterways and Boating Lake in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, was let to the Access Community Trust, a social enterprise that helps prepare people with disabilities and social difficulties find work.

The tenancy agreement ends in November and Access Community Trust has told the BBC that funding pressures have meant it has had to focus on its homelessness services.

Great Yarmouth Borough Council's portfolio holder for assets, Graham Plant, said: "We're really grateful to the Trust for what they've done over the years.. but it presents a really good opportunity now."

Funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund meant the first tenant had to be a social enterprise, but now it will be marketed to commercial operators

Rules set by the National Lottery Heritage Fund meant the first tenancy had to be agreed with a social enterprise, but GYBC said the rules now allow the site to be managed by a commercial operator.

However, the two full-time gardener roles will transfer to Great Yarmouth Services, a company owned by the council, relieving the tenant of the cost and responsibility of maintaining the gardens and water quality.

Plant added: "The gardens will be taken over by Great Yarmouth Borough Services so that won't be a responsibility of the cafe owner and it needs to be looked after.

"At the end of the day we have to look at it from a commercial point of view how it's going to be operated. Running a cafe is hard enough as it is, so we're happy taking over the gardens.

"We have all the equipment and staff to do this, and we've already worked out [the costs] so we haven't got a problem with that."

Emma Ratzer, chief executive of Access Community Trust, said they were unable to operate the cafe at a profit

Emma Ratzer, chief executive of Access Community Trust, said the charity was in its 50th year but the current economic situation meant it could not operate a cafe "that breaks even".

"We need to refocus our energies and resources on our homelessness and mental health services," she said.

"The cafe was successfully used to train many unemployed people over the years however employment funding ended last year.

"Hospitality, for anyone, is a challenge at the moment and for charities where funding is being reduced, operating a commercial cafe is too high a risk."