Community café in Hilton in Inverness set to close
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A last-ditch bid to save a much-loved Inverness community café from closure has failed.
Behind-the-scenes talks are taking place to see if an alternative service can be set up in the future.
From the end of this month, vending machines will replace the café at the Hilton Community Centre after talks involving High Life Highland (HLH), Highland councillors and the operators, Cobbs, failed to find a solution.
The Drumnadrochit-based catering company continued running the café after children’s hospital charity, the Archie Foundation, withdrew from the venture in December.
Hopes of finding a replacement charity then failed to come to fruition.
Following a public meeting this week when supporters pleaded the case to save the café, HLH said no valid tenders had been received to operate the café and vending machines would be installed.
“As a publicly-funded charity and in order to be fair to all concerned, HLH is unable to subsidise a private operator or put in place a business or individual that would breach HLH’s own public-sector procurement procedures,” an HLH spokesman said.
But a disappointed Fraser Campbell, director of Cobbs, said the company’s offer of a rescue package had been rejected.
“We would like to apologise to the Hilton community,” he said.
“We tried our best to put a package together.
“It is very sad because people have said how valuable an asset the cafe is especially for mums with young children.”
Inverness councillors Isabelle MacKenzie and Callum Smith are among local representatives discussing possible future options with HLH and the centre’s committee.
“Over the next few months, we will be looking at suggestions from the public meeting to see if we can set up something more workable,” Cllr MacKenzie said.
