The Sugar Rush venue in Ramsgate High Street is to shut its doors next month saying the blame lies with rising costs and cuts to funding for youth and arts organisations.
The former WHSmith store was taken on by Stage Door Arts CIC last February after it was forced to move from its site at 66 High Street due to plans to develop the buildings.
Sugar Rush was created as a community arts site on a one year pilot scheme.
Director Heidi Moran and supporters had hoped to continue at the site with plans to develop an in-house theatre alongside the current cabaret venue but says that due to significant cuts to core funding for arts and youth services, along with increasing competition for the remaining, decreasing funding opportunities, it has become increasingly challenging to sustain the level of service they want to provide.
Heidi, who works as a teacher alongside volunteering at the CIC, said: “It’s a great shame that we cannot continue in the space, but we are so proud of everything that was achieved in such a short time.
“So many local community groups and services are losing their funding and these are very difficult times for everybody. We definitely cannot afford to pay out for all these latest repairs on top of the costs we had already factored.
“We are so grateful to how welcoming and supportive the local community have been with this project.”
Heidi says the latest challenges have included a broken lift and this “has made it clear that continuing the project in this building is no longer viable.”
When Sugar Rush launched it received help from 70 volunteers to refurbish the derelict shop into a welcoming space.
The site has been used by community groups, hosted music, poetry and comedy nights with local performers, worked with local artists as an exhibition space, produced and hosted the first ever Ramsgate Pride, launched weekly community Sunday markets including art, vintage, pre-loved baby and children’s item sales plus regular indoor boot fairs.
The venue was also used for events by Ramsgate Festival of Sound, East Kent College, Kent Coast Volunteering, Ramsgate Lumiere, Pie Factory Music and Tonetic Records.
Last Christmas, it hosted the grotto for the Ramsgate light switch on event and held daytime and late night festive shopping sessions.
There has also been a Christmas Jumper & PJ swap shop for those unable to afford additional items over the festive season.
This month some 300 families have made use of the10 items for £1 January Jumble Sale, Stage Door has held 10 free workshops for children and teens in Thanet, hosted 52 different classes and gave children 43 different performance opportunities.
Eighty-four families have been supported by Dolly Mixtures, the free baby & toddler group that ran from the hub.
Last September an 11th hour appeal was made to save Sugar Rush and SDA from losing the 5,095 Sq. Ft venue after being faced with having to pay £10.5k to the landlord.
Sugar Rush will be running its last few events over the next month. There will also be a mega downsize clearance sale of theatre costumes, furniture and crockery- details of this will be published on the Sugar Rush facebook page. Items have also been donated to other local causes and charities.
Remaining events include jumble sales with 10 items for £1 and indoor boot fairs. This weekend there is also a big craft destash from 11am-1pm with fabric, craft items, art supplies and more being offered.
The volunteers plan to have a break before announcing plans for future youth performing arts projects and shows.
Sadly too many groups take on things that they couldn’t possibly afford in ‘real life’, something happens, then waste money moving around and around….
Agree, this is what happens when there is no clear business strategy,apart from asking the public for money to bail them out
That’s a huge building for a CIC with no funding to take on.
Coffee Shop-you can barly go 30 feet in Thanet without finding one, so never viable.
Community Arts Hub-again Thanet has been packed with them, there is only really room/need for one & the one that will always get funding is the Turner eyesore.
Event Space-you can hire places for events anywher & Draper’s Mills School has jumble sales.
Another ‘hub/arts project’ really another arty vanity project bites the dust because they don’t make money & the well has finally run dry to keep subsidising these things.
Andrew, Phyllis, Rees, Nokes, et al… did you ever support this with your patronage?
Personally I did go to Sugar Rush events and they were great – friendly people, good vibes and really welcoming. These nasty comments are really unfair. People volunteered to offer something positive for their community and that is to be applauded.I am sorry it didn’t work out but all the best for future ventures. Communities need more ‘do-ers’ and fewer moaners.
This is why I’d like to know if the regular contributors from Ramsgate visited – and if not, why (I personally don’t live in Ramsgate and very rarely visit). They probably won’t tell us though.
Perhaps if your ‘usual suspects’ were on this thread havin a pop then u might have a point. As theyre not i think its reasonable to assume they have nothing to defend.
They’re also not on here saying what a great loss to Ramsgate it is. I would, if I lived in Ramsgate and used the business.
No, it needs money being spent on things that actually make money & have a chance of lasting. Not endless pop-ups that aren’t sustainable, drain taxpayer funds & all offering the same thing.
Nobody questioned the dedication of the volunteers, how friendly people were, or whether it was a nice place. The question is why these things keep getting green lit in the first place.
Marinating a building especially one reliant on lifts is expensive. TDC struggle with maintaining their lifts (not that they are an income source) and they are a necessity for anything operating over two floors for disability reasons.
Maintaing
You will get there,eventually,Pip.
Tell you, not us. Kindly do not speak for me, I’m not demanding information from anyone.
Oh dear.
I have whiplash from the amount of times this ‘project’ has been on the brink of shutting down and then at the final moment is temporarily bailed out.
As for the notion of Sugar Rush being forced from its original location, it doesn’t look as though the site was demolished to build flats as we were initially told…?
Sadly many people have donated tome and money to this vanity project and now it’s all gone to waste.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch.
be honest , do you realy think something like this is part of the real ramsgate ? walk 50 yards
down the road and you will see some old drunk sat on a bench with a can , this will never be an arty farty area , get over it.
Nokes et al here. So an arts project goes west big deal!
Apart from the usual I hate Ramsgate trope with comments about drunks etc ,we receive the usual anti arts diatribes.
Small businesses and arts projects fail everyday and some of the zombie businesses that were thrown a lifeline during covid are now going through administration because tge HMRC is chasing for back tax owed.At this time of year it’s always the same.
Yes it is a big site,but it did repurpose to some effect, and is leaving it derelict a better option.
Ramsgate was a successful shopping centre, hence some of the big sites, but now it isn’t and we need a fresh approach nit the usual eeyoreism from the usual old farts that hark back to some mythical golden age.
A non-answer.
A non answer to what exactly?
That Ramsgate and Margate are coastal communities where investment has been spent on politicians projects instead of difficult regeneration schemes?
It may have escaped your notice, but even in the ‘village’ of Birchington nasty things sometimes happen.
After 50 years of ignoring the problem, Ramsgate needs substantial urban renewal and projects like Sugar rush though worthy, will not solve the problem.That does not make them vas people or misguided,they just do not have the tools necessary to effect permanent positive change.
Half of Britain is in tge same boat and it’s going to cost a lot to restore some kind of purpose to such places.
“Andrew, Phyllis, Rees, Nokes, et al… did you ever support this with your patronage?”
Still a non-answer.
No, pro-arts. Anti the dreck they try to pass off as art. The reality is Thanet doesn’t need dozens of art ‘hubs’ & now the funding is thankfully stopping those remaining other than the Turner monstroisity which is too big to fail, those remaining places sticking things on walls & piling things up on the floor will vanish-unless rich benefactors like the one who saved the Woolworths store step up.
I remember when she wanted to get the old bank premises. She wanted a grant/funding to get the lease. Then she wanted more funding to decorate the premises – which would have been a considerable amount of money as it was set-up as a bank. Then she wanted help with running costs. Would handing out the begging bowl have ever ended?
This is the thing with community projects which are really businesses. They are okay until the free money stops. Why can’t they also have a commercial element? Maybe get free money at the start, but charge people for things so that once the handouts dry up, they switch to a commercial model?
At the end of the day, there are at least two businesses I can think of which have, for example, space for crafters and people who make things in both Westgate and Broadstairs. These two businesses don’t leach off the public. They are run commercially as a business, yet they still help creatives sell their handmade products or get their things noticed.
So it can be done.
But if all you want is to give people free stuff, they will happily take it. But then the money runs out.
You should read the comments on the FB version of this article!
It is all a big grift. Sadly, unlike the Urban Cookie Dem Margate Collective group, they cannot cry racism.
Ramsgate is full of vermin smack heads and alcoholics walking around the town so any small business or community hub will struggle until the streets are cleaned up of the dregs.
Most dmackheads come over from Margate because Ramsgate Boots is where they get their methadone, if Boots stopped giving it to them then it would be a good start in sorting out a lot of the day problems in the town centre.
Mr. Q- your comment is an exaggeration.
Did you like Sugar Rush when you went in there? I know you’re a big supporter of the businesses in Ramsgate.
They can’t get Methadone in Margate?
When the council agreed the development of Westwood Cross the central business district of each town should have been redesignated (it’s called town and country PLANNING I believe )and businesses encouraged to centralise to the new CBD by both carrot and stick.
dear Pip,
yes you would have thought that some element of planning went into Westwood Cross and that the politicians of the past and present would have considered the unforeseen consequences of their actions, but alas not, hence the urban sprawl of Westwood Cross and the destruction of the surrounding towns.
The people who propose these ideas do not care what happens because they do not live in the district.The policymakers might live there, but thanks to a combination of parochialism (Birchington, Broadstairs and villages v the rest) and nonsensical political ideology, they accepted the arguments put forward by the planners, and there you have it.
What has this got to do with the collapse of Sugar Rush? You know, the place that put on arts events that you never supported, despite your constant rants about people not appreciating art?
Absolutely not surprised. I’d love to see a full breakdown of accounts for the past four years.
Wouldn’t we all! Apparently it’s not the first time a business of hers has collapsed (which is why I’d never contribute to these gofundme type pledges unless I REALLY knew the person).
There’s something very off about the accounts on Company’s house. Their current bank comes up as Happily Ever After if you do a card transaction yet that business closed in 2020. The SDA CIC has apparently been dormant since created. There’s no Sugar Rush registered on company’s house. This years transaction haven’t been registered yet and don’t need to be until later in the year. But they did trade at the previous place as were a similar thing with coffee shop, dance school etc. Where is all that registered? Be interested to see what happens this year. Surely they cannot claim to be dormant still as they have a Go Fund Me, have traded as Sugar Rush and The Salon Du Miel and have had ‘community’ groups.
I do hope there’s a full investigation. Meanwhile, I’m told that those who criticise her on facebook have been threatened with legal action.
I imagine that the accounts are as airbrushed as the photograph