Charity collapse 'leaves people without support'

Vulnerable adults have been left without adequate mental health support after a charity collapsed five months ago, according to its former users.

Access Community Trust (ACT), based in Lowestoft, Suffolk, abruptly shut on 25 February, leaving staff unpaid, community services closed and more than £1.4m of debt.

Other charities and East Suffolk Council have stepped in to help, but service users say they fear friends will permanently withdraw from society as a result of the closure.

The charity's trustees told the BBC they "remain deeply saddened by the way events unfolded" and that despite rescue attempts closure was "unavoidable".

It comes as recent research by the Charity Commission found "charities continue to face financial strain".

ACT provided housing in Lowestoft as well as mental health support services across Bury St Edmunds and Ipswich in Suffolk, and Gorleston and King's Lynn in Norfolk.

When it shut, 96 of its 126 employees were made redundant.

Documents show more than 1,800 people used its mental health cafes in the year ending March 2024.

Its sudden collapse, without enough notice for its services to be covered through other means, has caused issues.

In Gorleston, those who used to attend ACT's cafe had been meeting in the library and at a community centre since the closure.

However, those meetings are becoming far less frequent, those involved said.

Local charities have offered drop-in services but there is still no permanent place for them to go.

Service user Emma Hastings, 48, said: "It's quite sad that vulnerable people are still left for this amount of time – from February.

"It's not good enough, to leave someone in mental health crisis."

Shona Postle, 46, another service user, said: "Many of my friends are dipping quite badly.

"I'm disgusted by the way they treated us and didn't bother to tell anyone and I'm even more disgusted by the way they treated the staff.

"If it wasn't for the staff, I don't think a lot of us would be where we are."

The Charity Commission has opened a compliance case into the closure of the trust.

Former staff members, including Mel Collins from Lowestoft, have been left asking what went wrong.

"As I look back, I say to myself, 'I should have red-flagged.'

"We were begging for help; we were begging for staff. I couldn't even have annual leave.

"How could no-one know? I saw it. How could you not see it?"

Newly published documents show that when the charity went into administration it owed more than £1.4m to staff, authorities and other businesses.

Almost 100 unpaid creditors are listed, including energy firms, food wholesalers, property firms and staffing agencies.

The financial reports reveal that ACT had been struggling with high outgoings, funding cuts and rising costs for a number of years.

By December "serious financial challenges" were identified which the charity had hoped would be relieved by the sale of a building, but it was not completed in time.

The closure came in February when it became apparent the charity could not fund the staff payroll.

Alongside staff and service users, local businesses have also been impacted.

Almost £450,000 is owed to what are described in the administrator's report as trade and expense creditors.

One independent business in Lowestoft told the BBC it had had to cover a £1,200 loss for work completed in November, which it said was a "huge loss" for a small, family-run firm.

"That's my running costs for an entire month. It's so difficult to get money back you end up writing it off.

"There's only two of us here; it's horrible."

In a statement, the charity's trustees said that ACT "had been operating under financial pressure for some time".

It added: "Every effort was made to preserve services, protect residents and secure the payment of staff wages.

"Sadly, given the immediacy of the cash position and the payroll deadline, closure ultimately became unavoidable.

"What remains most important to all of us is the impact this has had on residents, staff, volunteers and the wider community.

"We remain deeply saddened by the way events unfolded and by the distress caused."

East Suffolk Council said the closure of the charity had resulted in the authority having to spend an extra £56,441 to provide bed spaces.

It said everyone displaced had been offered alternative accommodation, and that it was working with the new owner of the charity's former building to reopen it as a rough sleeper hub.

And it said it had been providing direct support to individuals and families, including a number of ACT clients, at the Community Help Hub at Rishton House in Lowestoft.

The council said it had also part-funded Involve Active to provide a home for Special Objectives for the Local Disabled (Sold), which was previously under the ACT umbrella, as well as working with other partners looking to reintroduce services.

The charity Mind has been providing drop-in mental health support services in east Suffolk as an interim solution and is set to re-open a mental health support hub in the premises of the former ACT cafe in Gorleston.

Sonja Chilvers, chief executive of Norfolk and Waveney Mind, said it had been working hard behind the scenes.

"We are very aware of the significant gap in local mental health support following the closure of Access Community Trust's services, and the impact this has had on people in the area," she said.

"It's incredibly important to us that communities have access to safe, welcoming spaces where they can seek support at the right time, and we recognise that this has been a difficult period for many."

A spokeswoman from the Charity Commission said: "We can confirm that the Charity Commission has opened a regulatory compliance case to assess concerns about the charity's governance and financial management.

"We are liaising with the trustees on our concerns."

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