CHILDREN’S charity CHICKS has stopped running breaks for disadvantaged children at its Brentor base for the foreseeable future, as it considers how to plug a hole in its finances.

The charity has called a halt to the breaks at its Devon centre, although free holidays for children continue at its centres in Cornwall and Derbyshire.

A spokeswoman admitted that the charity would need to raise a ‘six figure sum’ to refurbish the residential centre at Brentor before it could reopen. There are no plans to run holidays at the centre next year.

‘We have had breaks this year up until April and we have no plans to close this retreat, that isn’t the case,” said PR and marketing officer Alice Pope. ‘We are in the process of planning a refurbishment; the retreat really needs some TLC.

‘We still have our HQ here and we are very active in the local community. Our Tavistock events will go ahead as planned.’

She denied rumours that the charity, which celebrated its 25th anniversary this year, was in financial difficulties, although she conceded that a rethink was needed as to how the charity could ‘grow sustainably’.

This is the first year that CHICKS has run a full season of breaks at its Derbyshire centre, which it bought in 2014 with the intention of offering more breaks to children from the north of England.

‘I wouldn’t say [the charity is in] financial problems,’ said Alice. ‘We have two other retreats, in Cornwall and in Derbyshire, and ideally in the long run the plan is to run all three at the same time, but in financial terms, we need to grow sustainably so we can afford to run them all at the same time.’

She said they were now planning a fundraising campaign so that the Brentor holiday centre can be refurbished.

‘We are working out the costings at the moment. We will need to raise this entirely from fundraising because we don’t get any Government or statutory support,’ she said.

‘Because we have our HQ here, we want to separate out the staff areas from the children‘s spaces so they are separate entities, because that would make it easier for everyone and it’s better from a safeguarding perspective. It will also be nicer for the children.’

The charity, which started in 1992 offering Devon camping holidays to children from deprived backgrounds, later opening the centre at Brentor. In that time it has provided breaks for 14,800 children, many of them young carers.

It had a target to raise £1.5- million this year just to fund the holidays.