The Royal British Legion has closed its flagship Pop-in advice and information centre in Plymouth as it turns its back on the £10.2m programme of drop-ins and moves more online.
The centre, on the corner of Mayflower Street and Armada Way in the city centre, has been shuttered along with 14 others, as the charity moves to remote working following the Covid pandemic.
Since it opened in 2014 the centre has helped thousands of former Armed Forces personnel with a range of issues from debt management to housing.
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The third of 16 to open in major cities around the 海角视频, as part of a £10.2million programme, Plymouth was chosen because of the huge number of veterans in its South West catchment area and the idea was for the centre to increase the charity’s presence and modernise its image.
The Plymouth office, in a building which was once a branch of the Halifax building society, was seen as being very successful in doing that.
The two-floor Plymouth centre also provided a base for 12 staff, who worked across the region, and was accessible to the public too and sold a range of RBL-branded goods to raise funds for the charity.
But now the Pop-in centres have been abandoned in favour of online working and a regional hub model.
There had been centres in Liverpool, Leeds, Brighton, Manchester, London, Birmingham, Southampton, Cardiff, Bristol, Belfast, Aylesbury, Swindon, Colchester, Derby and Newcastle, as well as Plymouth.
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But the RBL is now concentrating on six regional hubs in Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester, London, and Edinburgh. So the nearest to Plymouth is in Cardiff.
The RBL confirmed the Pop-in centres were closing and said: “Throughout our 100-year history, the RBL has evolved and adapted, responding to the changing needs of the Armed Forces community and the changing environment we are operating in.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on how people choose to find and access information and support. As a charity, it is our responsibility to respond to these changes and ensure we are offering the best service possible for those who need us.”
The Plymouth Pop-in was considered one of the most well-used and popular of the charity’s high street locations, which were also designed to help the RBL find out exactly how many people require its services.
The organisation styles itself as the leading provider of welfare, comradeship, representation and remembrance for the Armed Forces community, which equates to about 6.2million people in the 海角视频 – each of them having served at least seven days’ paid service in the forces. That includes veterans from World War II right through to those who served in recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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In 2015, the RBL said 70% of people contact it via phone calls or emails, through its call centre in Wales, while 30% were using the Pop-in centres - mainly people with the most complex needs such as accommodation issues, the need for independent living, mental health problems, or money advice.
Documents filed with the Charity Commission for England and Wales revealed the RBL had an income of £143m in the year ending September 30, 2020, against expenditure of £160m. It employed more than 1,600 people and had an army of 550,000 volunteers. Seven staff members earned more than £100,000, and a further 42 earned more than £60,000, but no one earned more than £200,000.