Knowle West Health Association says it does not have sufficient funding to continue its services from next year

A charity that supports the health and well-being of people in one of Bristol’s most deprived communities is set to close.

Knowle West Health Association (KWHA), which has been running for up to 50 years, says it does not have sufficient funds to continue its services from around May 2024.

Based on Filwood Broadway in Knowle West, the organisation runs community kitchen classes, counselling sessions and a friendship club for older people.

The charity’s trustees say it has struggled to find new funding over the last two years and that it has been eating into its reserves.

“It is with huge regret that we have reached the point where it has become clear that we shall not have sufficient funding to continue our counselling service and cookery classes from the spring or early summer of next year,” said KWHA trustee Edward Duffield.

“Our responsibility to our clients, counsellors, staff and landlord is such that we need to make the decision and plan well in advance of using the last penny of funding.”

The charity will now be supporting its counselling clients to find new support and its staff, which includes trainee counsellors, to find new employment and placement options.

KWHA has been grappling with funding challenges over the last two years, having to close its community allotment space, which has since reopened under another organisation, in 2021.

Duffield continued: “We have vigorously sought new funds but have experienced an enormous change in the availability of funding especially for running/operational costs for existing work rather than new projects, new asset purchases and infrastructure costs.

“We have reduced our expenditure substantially with the aim of living within our means but new funding has met only a quarter of the costs and previous reserves are now fast running out.

“The aim over the next six months is to continue delivering the service to our counselling clients and to provide a variety of cookery classes to many different age groups from schoolchildren to the elderly. At the same time, we shall prepare to end these services in an orderly way, supporting as best we can all those affected.”

It is hoped the friendship club, a befriending group for over-40s, will be able to continue beyond the closure of the charity.

KWHA was previously based in Filwood Community Centre and used to run additional services, including the first Ofsted registered crèche in Knowle West, footcare and domestic violence support services.

Knowle West Media Centre’s origins also date back to an arts and health photography project run by the centre’s founder and CEO Carolyn Hassan at KWHA. Community activist Carol Casey was chair of KWHA for 25 years from 1991 until 2016, during which time the organisation won a Queen’s Award for Voluntary Services in 2010.

She said: “I am heartbroken that this community has yet again lost another organisation. I think it should’ve continued. When we first started out, it was important because there was nobody else at the time offering the services we were running.

“It is going to be a sad day. I just hope a good organisation can take it on and make use of the kitchen and everything paid for.”