An animal charity is putting the finish touches to a £50,000 new headquarters, after fighting a ‘hugely stressful’ two-year battle to find suitable accommodation.
North Norfolk Cats Lifeline Trust, which was founded in the 1990s by former opera singer Gay Rees in the grounds of her Sheringham home, has, over the years, taken in hundreds of neglected, abandoned and unwanted cats and kittens.
But after her death in 2017, the remaining trustees were told to pack up and leave, according to the North Norfolk News.
After a bitter legal battle, chair of trustees Sandra Branch-Burbridge decided the charity’s only option was to find a new home and put its 40 resident cats into temporary foster care.
TRAUMATIC
“It has been really stressful and traumatic,” the former dance teacher told the News. “We have had people fall out with us and people who thought we shouldn’t have carried on, but we have carried on and, overall, everyone has been incredible supportive – the RSPCA even offered to help us move the cats.”
An intensive fundraising campaign saw trustees and volunteers raise more than £50,000 for new buildings and, after the lease on a patch on land outside Antingham Village Hall, near North Walsham, was secured, local contractors began work on a purpose-built centre.
The new facility has three main housing areas, with a donated mobile home serving as an office and sleeping area for volunteers on night duty.
