Raystede has undertaken a major internal review and redesign to ensure we can adapt to the changes in our sector and the wider community and continue to deliver high animal welfare standards and outcomes long into the future.

We are currently running a deficit budget – in the financial year 2025 – 2026, it was a £1m loss. This is not sustainable, and next year will be the same, so we must take responsible steps to ensure Raystede is fit for the future. To deliver this effectively, we need an operating structure and financial model that can support our work for the long term. Doing nothing is not an option.

Some roles will change, merge or no longer be required – this will affect a number of staff. At the same time, new roles will also be created. As part of Raystede’s new direction, we will be reshaping how we deliver services and support animal welfare across Sussex.

A key part of this work will be the creation of a new Animal Welfare Support Team - a specialist team expanding our provision of expert advice, practical guidance and hands-on support focused on prevention, responsible ownership and animal care, both at Raystede and out in the community.

The team will also support rehoming activity and help ensure an excellent and compassionate experience for everyone who turns to Raystede for help, whether that’s to adopt or give up an animal or to seek help and support with their animal.

This approach will allow us to support more animals and people earlier, before their situation reaches a crisis point, while continuing to deliver high standards of welfare and care.

We are now moving forward with plans for change.

As part of the proposed changes, Raystede is focusing its on-site animal care work on the species and services where it can consistently deliver the highest welfare outcomes.  

There will still be animals at Raystede, whether it is those who are available for adoption or those for whom, where appropriate, we provide sanctuary. While we have outlined our decision to move away from providing on-site care for aviary birds and fowl, this does not impact the other animals currently looked after at Raystede’s main animal welfare centre in Ringmer.

These proposals do not mean Raystede will help fewer animals overall. Our intention is quite the opposite. By investing more in prevention, owner support, rehoming support and early intervention, we aim to help animals - and people - before they reach crisis point and reduce the need for animals to enter our care in the first place.

By increasing our focus on our fostering and Animals @ Home services, we will be helping more animals – and people – while enabling as many animals as possible to remain in a home environment.

Where animals do come into our care, protecting welfare standards remains a priority. The proposed staffing model is designed around safe staff-to-animal ratios, clearer leadership, and more consistent care, all benchmarked against other leading animal welfare organisations. By ensuring teams are appropriately structured and supported, we can continue to provide high-quality care without overstretching staff and resources.

The focus is therefore not simply on the number of animals cared for on site, but on achieving the best possible welfare and rehoming outcomes for animals through a combination of prevention, support, fostering, rehoming and direct care at Raystede and in the local community

We know that our many visitors enjoy coming to Raystede and seeing the animals in our care. There will still be many animals on-site and we always welcome people to visit to learn more about animal welfare and support our work. As part of our new strategy, we will be providing more advice and educational opportunities both onsite and out in the community.

Like many animal welfare charities, such as the RSPCA, Dogs Trust, SSPCA, etc, we are facing significant financial challenges largely beyond our control. Over the past two years we’ve spent more than £1m each year above the income we’ve generated. So, if we are to be here to care for animals in the long-term, we need to focus on the best way to use our resources to achieve that. These are not easy choices, but they are necessary ones.

Offering sanctuary to some animals remains very much part of Raystede's plans and continues to form part of our strategy framework with the vision that: Animals in Sussex have a good life, and people are supported to achieve that.

This aim is supported by three pillars:

Prevention – More people are choosing their pets and keeping animals more responsibly and knowledgably.
Support – More pets are able to live a good life and, where appropriate, stay at home with their owners with subsequent animal welfare benefits.
Care – Animals that are not able to be looked after elsewhere are rehabilitated and rehomed or, where appropriate, are provided with sanctuary.

While we have outlined our proposals to look towards moving away from providing on-site care for aviary birds and fowl, this does not impact the other animals at Raystede for whom we currently offer sanctuary to or those who might need this in the future.

We have undertaken a comprehensive and meaningful consultation process with staff to consider phasing out on-site care of aviary birds as part of a wider organisational review.

We know that many of our supporters and visitors feel a deep connection to these birds - we feel that too. We understand that many people will have questions around the decision and what will happen to the birds. We hope the following information provides some reassurance, we will continue to update it.

Aviary birds

Through our website and when we meet pet owners, where relevant we’ve highlighted our position, which includes maintaining that exotic birds should not be kept as pets. But when they’ve been relinquished by owners, we’ve had a responsibility to give these birds the best possible life in captivity, not least because it’s unlikely any would survive if they were released.

While the direction of travel to phase out the on-site care of aviary birds remains, we have listened and taken on board helpful suggestions on how to achieve that. This will happen over a very gradual period – with no fixed closure date - to allow for the relocation and rehoming of animals, with all such decisions being welfare-led. The rationale is based on:

• The organisation’s commitment to prioritising high welfare outcomes for all animals

• A shift towards focussing on species where Raystede can reliably provide excellent welfare and meaningful impact under the Prevention, Support, Care model

• The need to concentrate sustainable resources – staffing, facilities and expertise – on areas central to the revised strategy.

This is a strategic and sustainability decision, not a reflection on the dedication of skill of our teams.

For our sponsor bird, Ollie, nothing will change. He will remain at Raystede. We have informed his sponsors and will continue to keep them updated.

Fowl

We also intend to phase out the care of Fowl on-site – chickens, ducks, geese – we will gradually rehome those currently with us over a period of time, ensuring that they all find good homes.

For our much-loved turkey, Gregory Peck, please be assured that nothing will change. As an elderly and now quite infirm turkey, Greg will remain in sanctuary and live out his days, surrounded by his devoted carers and turkey companions, Ivy and Maple. His sponsors have been informed and we will continue to keep them updated.

We will still continue to work with the British Hen Welfare Trust by providing a venue and support for their regular hen rehoming days.

Yes.  Over the past year, a wide range of options were carefully assessed against the charity’s strategy and the requirement to achieve long-term financial sustainability.  These included reviewing all our animal care services, rehoming, sanctuary, our education provision, service redesign, cost reduction, income development options and different delivery models.  We reluctantly concluded that we need to gradually withdraw from on-site care for Aviary birds and Fowl.  

We also undertook a thorough review of all our costs across the charity.  This included managing the site, our visitor operation, commercial and fundraising costs, management and office staff.  We made a number of changes last year in our income generation teams and we have reorganised the senior management structure.  

We have been consulting with staff since the end of April about the proposals and we have carefully considered all alternatives and ideas received through this process.  

Raystede currently has over 50 different species of every kind of animal on the site and under our care.  This is an unusually wide range of species for one small local organisation to care for and it is not sustainable financially in the long term.

We will undertake a carefully planned transition process, which includes:

• Reviewing, updating and conducting ongoing individual welfare assessments for every bird.
• Working with reputable avian organisations and charities to identify suitable rehoming or relocation opportunities.
• Working with local individual experienced bird enthusiasts who may be able to rehome some of the birds.
• Ensuring any new environments meet or exceed Raystede’s welfare standards.
• Managing a phased transition period – with no fixed closure date - to prioritise the wellbeing of every bird in our care.

We have had some very positive initial conversations with other avian organisations and charities and will seek to work in partnership with them and others to find the best homes for the birds.

We will proactively seek to rehome some birds to individual enthusiasts, applying our usual thorough adoption process to ensure that any new environments meet or exceed Raystede’s welfare standards.

We will prioritise rehoming or relocation to organisations or environments that can meet high standards of care.

Individual birds will remain in Raystede's care until an appropriate outcome can be achieved.

We are including this question only because we have been asked. No, we are not going to put any birds to sleep as part of this process. The plan is to rehome and rehouse all the birds after assessing their health and welfare.

It is important to be open that, from time to time, animals at Raystede may need to be put to sleep due to a decline in their health or behaviour. Any such decision is made with the guidance of expert veterinary advice and with the aim of preventing unnecessary suffering. Our priority has always been, and remains, the health, welfare and wellbeing of every individual animal in our care. These decisions are never taken lightly and are often deeply sad and challenging.

Fundraising remains critical to Raystede’s future but one‑off appeals cannot address ongoing structural and recurring costs. Even a successful appeal would not remove the need to redesign services to ensure that future years are financially sustainable.  

The people of Sussex are very generous to Raystede and we could undoubtedly raise a significant one-off sum through an appeal.  However, this would not address the underlying long term nature of our financial problems.  Emergency or special appeals to cover everyday running costs (such as our Covid appeal in 2020) cannot be repeated every year.   We need to reduce our annual running costs significantly.  

Our fundraising income has doubled over the past few years and includes many different income streams but the top 5 are: regular gifts by direct debit; cash donations; gifts in Wills; challenge events; legacies – these income streams are generally not restricted to any particular species.  We are already working flat out to raise the funds to keep Raystede going year to year.  As our future sustainability depends on continued growth in overall income, we don’t think that diverting resources and investment toward special appeals or fundraising for specific areas of work is viable as a solution.

Have you explored all funding opportunities for the Aviaries?

We have explored a wide range of financial solutions, funding opportunities and fundraising options for the Aviaries.

As part of the review process, we looked at a variety of potential sources of income, including grant funding, public appeals, donations and other fundraising initiatives. While some of these opportunities could provide valuable short-term support, they would generally offer one-off contributions rather than the reliable, ongoing income needed to sustainably operate and maintain the Aviaries in the long term.

Although the proposal to phase out on-site care of the aviary birds will still go ahead, there is now no fixed closure date for the Aviaries. This means the Aviaries will remain open for longer than originally proposed, and we must continue our fundraising efforts during this period to help support the costs of extended operation.

In addition, one element of the modified proposal was a reduction in staff numbers. This will help reduce operating costs and support the Aviaries for a longer period.

However, we do need to keep raising money for Aviaries in order to support the extended operation of the section and we will continue to do this.

Our shops and commercial operations will raise £600,000 profit for the charity this year. The shops are all very profitable – a big thank you to our customers, volunteers and stock donors.

Our fundraising team are expected to raise £1.4m this year. Having restructured and reduced the size of the fundraising team last year, we are not planning to make additional investment in fundraising at this time. Of course, we need our current team of staff and volunteers to raise that money and secure funds for the future.

Over the past year, when thinking about how to organise Raystede for the future, we explored a wide range of alternative plans and options. We also undertook a thorough review of all our costs across the charity and made changes in a number of areas last year. This included managing the site, our visitor operation, commercial and fundraising costs, management and office staff.

We are not a zoo or a commercial animal attraction, we are a working animal welfare centre. We are glad to welcome visitors who through their voluntary support for the charity, enable Raystede to offer all our charitable services, care and sanctuary for animals and support for pet owners.

It can be difficult to strike a balance between 1) our wish to welcome visitors and supporters to get closer to and understand our work, experience our beautiful site and 2) the need to protect our rescued animals who are often very nervous and stressed by the public and 3) our wish to make it clear that we are not a zoo or animal attraction. There are inherent conflicts and tensions in opening up the site to visitors and we have worked hard to move away from the ‘great free day out’ offer. It is very unusual for a working animal rescue charity to welcome visitors and the general public. We feel that if we make a charge for entry, it will create an expectation for the visit and we cannot guarantee that there will be any animals to see. We are, however, now offering visitors the opportunity to make a voluntary donation towards our work when they book their free tickets.

We will be introducing a voluntary car parking charge for visitors which will help to offset some costs.

However, our current long term financial challenges are not directly related to what we offer visitors to our site in Ringmer. We have grown our income hugely over the past 5 years and people are very generous to Raystede but we cannot sustain the charity as it is currently structured in the long term because of rising costs. We are not alone in this – many local and national charities are facing the exact same situation and taking action, especially and sadly animal welfare charities which receive no government, statutory or Lottery funding.

You are very welcome to contact us with questions - you can do this via the email address feedback@raystede.org. We will continue to share updates whenever we are able to do so.

Your kindness, understanding and support mean the world to us. You can help by:

• Continuing to visit our site
• Supporting our shops, café and fundraising
• Making a donation or becoming a Friend or Sponsor
• Telling others about our work
• Standing with us as we navigate these difficult, but necessary changes

Your support helps protect Raystede’s future so we can continue to give animals in Sussex a good life and support people to do that for many years to come. Thank you from all of us at Raystede.