In last week’s Courier, it was reported that the Musselburgh Common Good Fund (MCGF) had an underspend for the year 2022/2023.

Although grateful for the £32,000 the Hollies [day centre in Musselburgh] received in April 2022, it was a third of what we requested.

It costs £16,000 per month just to open our door, without putting up our costs in line with the rest of the cafes in town, which defeats the purpose.

Despite the continuing efforts of dedicated staff and volunteers, we still, at present, cannot generate enough income to meet our monthly overheads!

Therefore we approached the MCGF again for a grant. I am well aware we cannot expect this fund to support us year in, year out. However, the ask of a grant for £40,500 to help us stay open and support the local, mainly socially isolated, community of our town was a last-ditch attempt to keep the Hollies running.

On October 6, we received a rejection email for our request.

The main reason given was that they couldn’t give us the sum requested, so we received nothing.

I know the high esteem in which the Hollies is held by the local community.

In fact, funds raised by local groups from golf clubs to nurseries between November and December last year brought in £13,000 of much-needed funds, for which we are eternally grateful to each and every one of you who contributed.

Not only that but I speak to people every day who tell me that if it was not for the Hollies they would have nowhere to go. I also have copies of two petitions carried out within the Hollies in the last few years echoing that sentiment.

I have reached the point where I can no longer keep silent concerning what I feel is the longstanding bias against the Hollies by officers and some councillors at East Lothian Council. This has also been noticed by one of our MSPs.

Is it perhaps partly due to the fact that, in 2017, at a meeting with the Hollies trustees, the then group service manager for planning and performance of the Integration Joint Board informed us “we were moving out of the building on 183 High Street, Musselburgh”.

We reminded him we had a lease for 99 years.

The Hollies is the last council-owned, OPEN community building on the High Street. Save it now or lose it forever.

In my opinion, this statement will cost me my much-loved job at the Hollies.

However, I consider it worth it if the message finally gets out to the community that this is their last chance to save the Hollies, because once it closes it will never reopen.

In my 12 years working at the Hollies, I have met some incredible people who use the Hollies facility and despair for them when it closes.

The lack of resources for the older community in Musselburgh is disgraceful and it’s time something was done about it.

Liz Shannon

Manager, The Hollies Community Hub