Take my tip

It made a loss of £10,000 in the last financial year and is budgeted to make a similar loss in the current year.

What is the parish council’s solution? Amazingly, it has decided to extend the cafe.

In these hard economic times, should the parish council be spending our money in this manner, when Rustington has an expanding range of eateries in The Street?

Jane Stannard

Chanctonbury Road

Rustington

l Parish council chairman Phil Evans has replied: “As the new chairman of Rustington Parish Council and a chartered certified accountant by profession, I fully understand the concerns of Jane Stannard.

“The Museum Garden Café is a facility run by the council for a number of reasons and is not purely a profit-making business competing with other eateries. It is set in beautiful surroundings, serving specialist lunches and acts as a popular meeting place for many residents of the village.

“It is also an impressive facility in which the council can hold small lunchtime functions and, perhaps more importantly, it helps those with special needs within our community to get training and to work in an everyday environment. A small loss, we believe, is therefore justified.

“Having said that, the council has had a number of meetings to discuss how to improve the financial position of the Garden Café and one option is to increase the seating capacity, which should, in turn, increase the turnover and gross profit.

“By coincidence, an offer of a free extension to the café was received recently, but this will go ahead only if the parish council believes the possibility of eliminating the loss is realistic.

“In the meantime, a worst case scenario has been budgeted for, but this situation will not be permitted to continue into future years. Of course, any alternative must take account of the staff who work at the café, all of whom are residents of the village, and the council will ensure that any decisions made are the best decisions for the village, for the staff and for the residents/taxpayers.”