Rising energy costs for the Hampshire Cultural Trust make hire rates unaffordable for community groups at The Arc

Like many other organisations, Hampshire Cultural Trust has enforced price changes due to rising energy costs. On Thursday, September 1 the charity warned community groups using The Arc that costs increases were coming.

To the surprise of Winchester Café Scientifique who use The Arc's café area once a month, hire rates have increased by six times from £30 to £180 (paid monthly).

The original rate was agreed back in 2014 when the science café first started using the space.

William Vine, organiser of the voluntary science group said: “They want a six-fold increase and that just can’t happen, it’s impossible.

“We’ve got the online route which we used through lockdown, which wasn’t for everybody. We were just starting get our audience numbers back. Before lockdown we sometimes had more than 100 but since then we’ve gone from about 20 to 40 people.

“It’s recovering and they’ve just smashed us on the head with a hammer.

“I don’t understand frankly how they’ll continue to operate with their community events at that rate either. What essentially is going to happen is the move to the Cultural Trust is going to kill off a lot of cultural activity."

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Mr Vine broke the news to the rest of the group on Monday, September 5, at Winchester Café Scientifique’s final talk at The Arc, formerly known as the Discovery Centre. Face to face science meetings will now be discontinued due to the new hire rates being imposed from October.

The community group organiser received a disappointed response from the 50 attendees, the largest attendance for a science talk since before the pandemic.

William added: “You could see the look on people’s faces when I told them.”

Hampshire Cultural Trust took over operational responsibility for the Discovery Centre in Jewry Street in February 2022, renaming the hub as The Arc. The organisation had been honouring the existing hire rates and bookings previously agreed under the Discovery Centre. But the charity has spent the last six months evaluating how the space is used and its associated costs before announcing the hire rates.

Beck Jeffery, director of arts and culture at Hampshire Cultural Trust, said: “Three factors have led us to introduce this new pricing structure. 

"During our review, it became evident that there have historically been a number of differences in room hire prices – for example, one of the building’s larger spaces has been charged at the same rate as a much smaller meeting room for 12 people. In addition, the current pricing structure does not allow for the costs that we incur to staff The Arc for room hire outside our normal opening hours, making this unsustainable. Finally, as is the same with many other organisations, we are facing a significant rise in energy costs to operate the building.

“Without this increase in our hire rates, we would quite simply no longer be able to offer out of hours room hire to the community. It is really important to stress that these new hire rates are very comparable to other venues in Winchester and that we do offer a 50 per cent discount on our standard rate to community hirers, as well as a further 10 per cent discount for any group confirming six or more bookings. We have been in touch with all our current hirers and are more than happy to discuss their hiring with them so that we can meet both their needs and budget.”

Winchester Café Scientifique moved to the building in Jewry Street when the group outgrew its meeting base at the Bridge Patisserie and William Vine took over as organiser.

For the last eight years the science group has hosted monthly talks on a wide range of STEM subjects from local academics talking about their latest research, in an informal café setting with members of the group would arriving as much as 45 minutes early to use the café and meet with friends.

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Since the government lockdowns the local science café has continued to stream its live events via YouTube for those unable to attend or wanting to avoid large groups.

Whilst Winchester Café Scientifique look for alternative and affordable venues the group will operate online via Zoom and YouTube.

Mr Vine said: “I don’t know whether this will still work with audiences, it was different when we had to.  This is more fatal than covid for us.

“We’ll try different things to try and keep it going but I don’t know what they’re thinking at the Cultural Trust. They must have considered the impact this is going to have on the groups but where they are going to get the money, I have no idea. I think they’re in cloud cuckoo land if they think we’re going to pay that kind of money.

For more on Winchester Café Scientifique and its talk schedule go to wincafesci.org.uk.