Bridgwater's Oxfam shuts down after twenty five years

Oxfam confirmed the news of the closure this week.

An Oxfam spokesperson said: “Oxfam shops exist to raise as much money as possible to overcome poverty and suffering in some of the poorest countries in the world.

"We constantly evaluate the profitability of all our shops, to ensure they are efficient and making the most money for Oxfam's vital work.

“Sometimes this leads to difficult decisions about the viability of particular shops. These decisions are never taken lightly and we always take into the account the impact on our staff and volunteers.

“We have made the difficult decision to close the Bridgwater Oxfam and are sorry for any disappointment this causes. Our shop has been open for 25 years and we want to thank the Bridgwater community, staff and volunteers who have supported us so generously over the years.”

An unnamed volunteer working at Oxfam for ten years also shared their thoughts explained how through maintenance they learnt about the shop which would be closed down.

They said: "Maintenance has been sat on this case over a year and manager she has kept contacting to get it sorted, nothing really was just kept sending just to look at it to get so called quote."

They also revealed how they were told by Oxfam team that there was scarcity of other volunteers.

They said: "Then we are told also not enough volunteers to run the shop, they had to bring in another area manager to inform our manager that we closing as our own area manager for some reason would not tell us the news."

Expressing their feelings about the Oxfam's decision to shut down they said: "I am disgusted with them, the lack of support and care towards us, they speak and talk about these things and don’t follow through in their welfare check towards us."

"We don’t get any thanks for all what we do from them, I feel upset and disgusted with them."

The volunteer also expressed upset over how Oxfam was not transparent about their decision to the volunteers.

They added: "Truth is we have not been given any real reasons why they closing us, not that we not bringing profit we are, our final meeting and that is with the Volunteers and Oxford Area manager, than depending on the amount that turns up weather we close in 6 weeks or Thursday May 25."

In 2012 The Oxfam store in Bridgwater was threatened with permanent closure before Glastonbury festival organiser Michael Eavis offered to cover the premises’ rent and persuaded the charity to keep the store open.