The future of an Ashfield café providing work to people with disabilities remains uncertain as negotiations with the council that owns the building continue. The Rumbles Community Café, based on Sutton Lawn in Sutton-in-Ashfield, has been serving the community for 15 years but the local council is now looking at whether it can continue to "heavily subsidise" its bills.
A public meeting has been called at the café on April 15 to discuss its potential future, though this may be rearranged after Ashfield District Council said nobody could attend because the authority has entered the pre-election period known as 'purdah'. This period limits the activities that elected councillors and officers can undertake in an effort to avoid influencing the result of the elections, being held on May 4.
Tamar Roberts is the director of the café and said: "We were told that Ashfield District Council wouldn't be able to attend due to purdah, which we were not aware of before, so we're now looking into the public meeting and we'll be providing an update on that shortly. Officially, the council says it is still in negotiations but we will just have to wait and see."
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Ashfield District Council member David Hennigan, who will not be standing for re-election to the authority in May, says the café was told about the purdah and the difficulties it created. On the wider issue of the café, Councillor Hennigan said: "We have been heavily subsidising this café for a number of years and with the best will in the world, I'm not sure if we're going to be able to keep doing that.
"We've had other cafes in the area ringing us up asking why we're not giving them similar support. I fully sympathise with the café, but we do have to look sensibly at this."
An Ashfield District Council spokesperson said no decision on the future of the café had officially been made. They said: "Ashfield District Council has been in discussions and continues to negotiate with the current tenants of Rumbles Café as their 15-year licence is due for renewal.
"Discussions are still ongoing." The Rumbles catering project also runs a venue in Clipstone and has been running for 25 years, offering thousands of placements to people in the community.
A previous version of this article stated that the team at The Rumbles had not been told about Ashfield District Council's inability to attend due to purdah. This was incorrect, The Rumbles were told after having sent out the invitation to the public meeting.
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