Coventry charity cafe's future uncertain amid demolition plans

A community cafe has said it faces an uncertain future amid plans to regenerate Coventry city centre.

Coffee Tots, which provides parenting support, is based in City Arcade which is to be demolished under the £400m City Centre South project.

Ann McCabe, family support coordinator at the organisation, said keeping a city centre location was vital.

Coventry City Council said it had been supporting businesses over the past 12 months.

Ms McCabe said Coffee Tots was started about 12 years ago by a group of parents who wanted to help people feel less isolated, and supported families in need of financial help.

She said the coffee shop, which opened in 2010, was a "safe place" for parents and appropriate for children, and used its city centre location to reach families from across Coventry.

"We took on the lease 12 years ago not knowing about the redevelopment of the city centre and we found out some years ago in one of its previous forms, but we have only last summer had firm details about when we would need to leave," she said.

While she said the organisation welcomed investment in the area, the "independent businesses" which Coventry has been well known for should not be "squeezed financially out of the marketplace".

Plans to demolish the arcade and other buildings for housing, leisure and retail were approved last year and developers hope to start work within nine months.

Busy Fingers, a 52-year-old knitting shop, has announced it is set to leave Coventry when its unit within the arcade is knocked down.

The city council said it was trying to help firms in the arcade relocate.

Richard Moon, director of property at Coventry City Council, described the development as "good news" for the city, but accepted there were "challenges" for the businesses in the area as they looked to the future.

He said it had agreed a new lease with Coffee Tots in recent days, ahead of the demolition. The cafe said this new lease was for its current premises and would tide it over until the point when it is evicted for the start of the redevelopment.

"We are going to create 1,200 new apartments, new retail, new restaurants, a new hotel, all of that in a part of the city centre that has frankly become tired over the years," Mr Moon said.

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