It is with much sadness that we have had to close our charity shop here in Barrack Street, Bridport.

Having opened the shop in 1998 it has raised funds to help literally thousands of cats over the years. Our reasons for closing are two-fold.

Firstly there is far too much competition in Bridport.

The number of charity shops has doubled since we first opened and a number of like-minded shops have also opened.

With our shop now in a secondary trading position, unfortunately for us, customers now have a variety of shops, together with two animal welfare shops, on the high street in which they can choose to spend their money.

I may add that although one of the animal charity shops originates from Somerset, I am hopeful that this charity will deal with many of the cat problems that will arise here in Bridport and the surrounding areas in the future.

Secondly, and rather sadly, a large number of our volunteers have either passed away or are too elderly to help us any more.

We did not have an employed manager as we preferred the money raised to go directly to the benefit of cats, so we relied solely on volunteers to open the shop. You may have noticed that for the past year or so the shop was literally only open for three or four days a week.

Having advertised to no avail for new volunteers, we therefore could not continue to keep the shop open and running.

We would like to thank all of our customers, especially our loyal regulars, for all of their support over the past 16 years.

We also wish to say a huge thank you to the volunteers both past and present who have worked tirelessly to raise as much money as possible for the cats.

We are a small charity and with no shop in Bridport we will only be able to help as many cats in the area as funds permit.

We are extremely sad to leave Bridport as it is a lovely town with very friendly residents.

We would like to thank everyone for making our time at Barrack Street so enjoyable.

Thank you.

Lynda Downton
Coodinator Feral Cat Care