AN under-fire charity has laid off five members of café staff only months after telling them their jobs were safe, a former employee has claimed.

Community 360 was in the spotlight in February after it was revealed the charity gave its chief executive Tracey Rudling a loan of £206,341.

The charity formerly ran the café at Colchester Hospital’s primary care centre before announcing in April the service would be discontinued.

Café manager Joe Bridge, 32, has told the Gazette he was made redundant as part of the closure despite, he said, being told by management he would be moved elsewhere in the business.

He said: “Two weeks before I was made redundant, I was in meetings where I was being told management wanted to progress me in my role as café manager.

“They said they wanted me to use my experience in other parts of the business and said there was going to be a C360 hub café in town.

“Two weeks later, my boss rang me to say I was being made redundant.”

Mr Bridge said the same staff who were told they would be kept on in a new city centre café have now been let go too.

He said: “My team were told they would go into the café in town.

“We were told it was going to move into the C360 hub, but we are told that’s not going to happen either.”

A spokesman for C360 did not deny they had abandoned a proposal to set up a new café at the C360 hub in the city centre.

Questions raised with C360 about café staff being made redundant were unanswered.

A spokesman for the charity said: “We were saddened to take the difficult decision to step away from operating the café at the Primary Care Centre to allow us to focus on delivering our other essential services, and we would like to thank everyone who has supported it over the last few years.

“Our absolute priority is to support the most vulnerable people in our communities, and we will always take action to ensure that we are able to provide the most impactful services to them.”