Charity Vitalise To Close Cornwall Centre
A charity which helps disabled young people take part in outdoor pursuits is closing its Cornwall centre.
Vitalise said the lease on its centre at Churchtown, Lanlivery was due to end in September.
It had decided “with regret” to focus its services on its three other UK centres in Hampshire, Essex and Merseyside.
The charity said it was working with Cornwall Council to keep a day centre on the site open.
The day centre, activity centre and residential and self catering accommodation for families has been leased for the past 10 years from the disability charity Scope.
Chief executive Chris Simmonds said: “We’re proud of all we’ve achieved there, but now is the right time for us to refocus our resources on our other centres around the UK.
“However, we remain hopeful that some solution can be reached that will enable the day service to keep supporting disabled people from the region, even at this late stage.
“We’re working closely with the council to keep supporting the service users and their families during this difficult time.”
The Churchtown 12-acre site includes an adventure course, a small working farm, climbing tower, nature reserve and archery range.
Activities include canoeing, climbing, and abseiling.
Ruth Sutherland, executive director of services at Scope, said Vitalise had made a “big difference” to disabled people.
“As the freeholders, we must now consider what the best option is for the site,” she said.
“We realise this news will be extremely disappointing to the people that use the centre and we will be speaking to Cornwall Council to see whether we can offer any support.”
Same Difference 
The centre in cornwall is one of the most popular with vitalise. They were told at churchtown if they turned things around they would keep the cetre open this they did. The staff worked really hard doing hours of work without any pay to turn the defict around. But still they are closing the centre. this is a major loss to cornwall and disabled people. Something must be able to be done to keep it open. Scope were due to take over the site but pulled out at the last minute
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