Banham Zoo and Africa Alive charity set to lose a third of jobs

The closure of two zoos has caused a charity a loss of about £1.5m

A charity which runs two zoos is set to lose a third of its jobs in order to "have a fighting chance of survival".

The Zoological Society of East Anglia (ZSEA) runs Banham Zoo in Norfolk and Africa Alive in Kessingland, Suffolk.

The zoos have both been closed to the public since the end of March because of the pandemic.

Chair of trustees Gerard Smith said the zoo's closures had "caused a very serious loss" of about £1.5m in revenue.

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He has written to 201 employees about the planned restructure, and the charity said there would now be a 30-day consultation period.

Mr Smith said: "None of us could have foreseen the devastating effects of this public health crisis."

ZSEA said it was "too early to say" how many redundancies there would be.

However, it added: "Ultimately we are needing to reduce the size of the team by about a third in order for the charity to have a fighting chance of survival.

"The large majority of these proposed changes will mainly be roles in the commercial side of the organisation."

The zoos are preparing to re-open to the public from July.

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