A POPULAR "health café" will be serving its last cuppa on Saturday.
Beyond Coffee, in Chanterlands Avenue, west Hull, will cease trading as a café from the weekend.
The news comes after NHS Hull Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) decided not to renew the contract for the café's birth preparation classes.
The funding cut means Birth And Beyond Consultancy Ltd, which is a not-for-profit social enterprise, can no longer afford to run the café, but will continue classes until September.
Eight people will be made redundant in the closure.
Director Julie Flint said: "I'm very sad to see the café end – it will be horrible seeing it go on Saturday.
"We're having a 'Bye Bye Bun Fight' and are inviting people to come and say goodbye and have lots of cake."
Ms Flint and fellow director Sallie Ward set up Birth And Beyond Consultancy Ltd in 2007 to provide birth preparation classes for women.
In January 2011 they opened the café in Chanterlands Avenue.
Although it was set up to bring "health to the high street", its main focus in the past has been on new parents, birth preparation and offering an environment for women to breastfeed.
Ms Flint said: "We have been very successful in raising the profile of childbirth education and breastfeeding support – essentially we did a lot with very little money to prove that women need more than just education.
"We didn't just offer the classes – we offered a space where parents could feel safe and make new friends with people who are going through the same things they are.
"But we have been penalised for being courageous and working hard with our money in the relative infancy of our business."
Parents-to-be currently booked on the birth preparation classes will still be able to continue them at the café.
They will stop after September, with a new supplier being contracted by NHS Hull CCG from October 1.
Julia Mizon, Hull CCG's director of commissioning and partnerships, said: "We're currently working with the recommended bidder to agree the contract for the service, which will be operational from October 1.
"Once these discussions are complete, a formal announcement will be made by the CCG, including details of the new provider.
"The Birth Preparation and Parent Education Service is currently provided by Birth and Beyond Consultancy Limited, which had a three-year contract with the CCG to deliver the service up to the end of September this year."
Ms Ward and Ms Flint have a lease on the café until December, and are therefore looking for people who want to use the space and rent it out.
Ms Flint said: "We'd love to hear from people who want to use it much like a community centre.
"It could be used for a pop- up shop or to hold an event.
"If we can find something that is within our planning consent that includes keeping the staff employed, that would be brilliant."
Supporters of the café are invited to go along on Saturday for the goodbye party.
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