I wanted to personally inform you about some significant developments at Bransby Horses.
Like many other charities, we’ve seen our running costs rise exponentially in recent years due to various external factors including soaring food and energy prices and increasing rates of pay in the employment market. As a result, the cost of delivering our equine welfare and estates work across our two sites, Bransby and Barlings, has risen by over 50% since 2018.
Despite the incredible generosity of our supporters, we’ve unfortunately seen the gap between our expenditure and our income widening in recent years, to the point where we are currently forecasting an unsustainable £2.5m deficit this year.
We began addressing this mismatch several years ago, moving swiftly to introduce several measures aimed at lowering our costs. While these measures delivered £450,000 in savings over an 18-month period, it became clear that more action was needed to address the ever-widening gap. Consequently, we launched a comprehensive review of our operations in November 2023.
Following this review and a detailed assessment of a number of possible options, we’ve taken the difficult but necessary decision to adapt our model in several areas to enable us to continue to deliver on our mission to transform the lives of equines in a more consolidated, efficient and financially sustainable form.
As a result, we’ve sadly identified 17 roles at all levels within the organisation, including our senior leadership, equine welfare and support service teams, that are at risk of potential redundancy – with our proposals subject to a full and thorough 30-day consultation process which will begin next week.
We’re devastated that the rising costs we face have led to this and wholly committed to doing everything we can to support everyone affected through this difficult process. This includes working closely with impacted employees to look for every opportunity to mitigate job losses and, where this is not possible, supporting employees in finding new employment.
While this is distressing news for everyone at Bransby Horses, we believe our new operating model will enable us to continue to deliver on every aspect of our work to improve the lives of equines, albeit at a slightly reduced scale, while significantly easing the financial pressures we’re currently facing to protect the charity’s long-term future.
While the new operating model will significantly reduce the £2.5m deficit, it will not eliminate it. As a second phase of this project, we’re reviewing all charity assets and facilities with our new structure in mind to identify any further cost reduction or income generation opportunities. This stage of the process is already underway, and we anticipate it will be completed by the end of this year.
I’d like to reassure all visitors that our award-winning Visitor Centre in Bransby will remain open as usual (five days per week, including the Café, from Wednesday through to Sunday), providing the opportunity to learn about equine welfare and meet some of the hundreds of horses, donkeys, ponies and mules currently homed at the site.
Thank you for your understanding and continued support, it’s more appreciated than ever.
Jo Snell
CEO
