Dear Dean Russell,

My name is Melanie Silver and I live in your constituency. As my MP, I am writing to you out of concern for funding support for animal welfare charities, which specialise in rescuing and rehoming stray, unwanted and neglected pets. The Government appears to have misunderstood the nature of the work and the funding model for these charities, which provide a vital service to the communities within which they operate.

In normal times, these organisations rely solely on donations from the public and receive no government funding whatsoever. However, the coronavirus pandemic has left many of these small locally-based charities, such as Watford’s National Animal Welfare Trust (NAWT), facing a drastic shortfall in funding due to the forced closure of their charity shops and curtailment of fundraising activities at their rehoming centres. To be blunt, these organisations are facing a challenging financial future, which could result in permanent closure.

Government guidance for this current lockdown states that animal rescue centres can remain open, yet DEFRA guidance says that animal rescue centres cannot open to the public unless in an emergency or for animal welfare reasons. Although rehoming is technically allowed, it can only be done online. As you will appreciate, there are very few animals that can be rehomed without home checks, added to which few people will adopt an animal without meeting it first.

Therefore, while local authorities will argue that rehoming centres are not eligible for grant funding on this occasion because theoretically they remain ‘open’, in reality, these organisations are effectively closed as they cannot carry out any of their normal activities except in extreme animal welfare situations.

By comparison, zoos and wildlife parks must close and as a result, will no doubt receive government funding (as they have previously) even though, like the NAWT, they are as much ‘open’ as an animal rescue and rehoming centre, as employees need to continue to attend work to care for the animals.

Moreover, the smaller rehoming organisations like us operate with very low employee numbers, so the opportunity to furlough employees has been and remains extremely limited.

If charities like National Animal Welfare Trust were to no longer exist, the cost of managing stray and unwanted pets will fall directly to the Government. I urge you to raise this issue in Parliament with Chancellor Rishi Sunak and respond to me outlining the steps you have taken on my behalf.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Melanie Silver

On behalf of volunteers for the National Animal Welfare Trust