THE manager of a church-owned café has criticised the decision to close it, claiming her staff “haven’t been given a chance” and it has been done to avoid paying business tax.

Cathy Milward has run the café in The Old Palace, in Deansway, for 25 years but Diocese of Worcester bosses have decided to cease trading on April 17.

The diocesan secretary John Preston denied it was in relation to tax and claimed this is strictly a business decision because the café is making a significant loss of “well over £10,000 a year”.

Regular customer Sara Hayward has called it a “scandal” and believes the decision is “short-sighted”, arguing the café simply needs to be marketed better.

Tucked away inside the Old Palace, opposite the cathedral, Ms Hayward said it was previously only for members of the Church House Club – but said better signage could allow it to flourish.

“The café is open to the public, but the public don’t know it’s there,” she said. “It’s a scandal, it’s not fair to close it down, because no-one knows about it yet.

“I have been enjoying meeting friends for midweek lunches at the Old Palace for 25 years and firmly believe it should stay open.

“It provides a haven in a busy city which few people know about."

“There are plenty of heritage sites in Worcester with cafés that need to be supported. It’s all well and good going to Starbucks but we should be supporting these beautiful local spots instead.”

The building houses the diocesan offices and to access the café customers are required to sign in at the main desk.

Mr Preston took up his current role in November last year before informing Ms Milward and her two staff in January they would be losing their jobs.

“He has made the decision after about two months of arriving at the company and it’s all down to not being able to advertise,” said Ms Milward, 64.

“I’m two years off retirement, which is a really bad time to lose your job and, as a so-called Christian-run establishment, we feel that we haven’t been given a chance.”

She went on to say: “It’s all down to the business tax. It’s because they don’t want to pay the business tax, which, apparently, is not a huge amount of money.

“Had the place been marketed then I don’t think we’d be closing. This gentleman [Mr Preston] doesn’t know the history of the way we’ve worked and the time we’ve put in.

“Through the years we’ve come up with these difficulties [but we’ve always overcome them].

“We’ve worked really hard, we’ve done weddings, lots of other functions, we’ve worked days, we’ve worked evenings, weekends.”

Ms Milward added that she and her staff were only given a two-week window for discussion over the decision and felt her employers could have handled it better.

“I’m not the one doing the deed, I’m on the receiving end. We know a lot of people have been writing into the bishop [to keep the café open],” she said.

“We know we’ve got the support of the customers, but from our employers it would be nice to have some kind words.”

Mr Preston said he sympathised with the café staff but the church “can’t afford to subsidise the café” anymore.

“We have been making significant losses over a number of years,” he continued. “They [the café staff] do a really good job, we’ve tried a number of things to improve trade, but we haven’t been able to achieve enough business to make it worthwhile, to cover our costs.

“We are significantly away from making it break even. If it was close, we would be looking to try and do some additional things.

“The diocese here is funded by the contributions of parishes around the dioceses. Many of our parishes are finding the time really challenging and therefore, really reluctantly, we cannot subsidise a café or restaurant that’s making a loss.

“It is significant, and in response what people have suggested is we just charge a bit more for the coffee but that isn’t going to make enough difference.”

Mr Preston paid tribute to Ms Milward and her staff and said the closure “is no reflection upon them”.

Ms Hayward has called for people to email Bishop John Inge at bishop.worcester@cofe-worcester.org.uk to protest the closure.