DARTMOUTH Tourist Inform­ation Centre is facing a make-or-break year as it strives to turn around the loss-making operation that has been described as the ‘front door’ to the town.

It cost £110,000 to run the award-winning centre in Mayor’s Avenue car park last year, with staff wages understood to be in the region of £60,000.

The centre made a loss of over £11,000 in 2015. The year before the deficit was closer to £13,000.

For months, directors have warned the centre has been under threat and appeals have gone out for financial support from the town.

But concerns over giving help to a private limited company with a retail element has delayed funding from the town council and discussions are still ongoing with the Business Improvement District and other bodies over a possible rescue package.

Now TIC directors say they have slashed costs to the bare bone – cutting the centre’s workforce in half. But crucially more investment is needed if it is centre is to survive.

At the launch of the 2016 brochure in the Flavel last Wednesday, the TIC team said it was working hard to secure three vital elements of its business – the website, the brochure and the centre itself, which is what is costing money to run.

Investment is essential in order to maintain autonomy and stop others ‘picking bit and pieces off’ the TIC, they say.

Chairman Angie Cairns-Sharp said: ‘We have had to restructure and it is with great regret that unfortunately will be losing our full-time manager Lesley Turner. But there is nothing else we can do.

‘Wages do stand out as a cost. We are a public-facing organisation and even with our 13 volunteers that is going to be our largest expense. When you are providing a free service for the whole of the town, there is a cost there.

‘We are continuing to work with the BID and Visit South Devon and members of Dartmouth Town Council, and directors are working hard to secure and explore all those avenues. But it not easy.’

‘All is being done to find a way forward to preserve what we feel is vital service for the town,’ she said.

Director Hilary Bastone said: ‘We are not alone in this. Visit England has just produced a report giving details of TICs around the country and there is a great number of them closing down with the withdrawal of local authority funds.

‘But we are a stand alone TIC and have struggled in recent years to try to keep it going and we come to this point now where we are having to re-evaluate what we are doing and we would like to keep the website, the brochure and the centre.

‘The website needs investment, the brochure is fine but the centre is our biggest expense and the area that is costing us money.

‘Those three things are what we feel a are vital for the TIC to continue.

‘But there are those who want to pick bits and pieces off us without contributing to the TIC. There are one or two who have their eyes on our website but that was a website that the TIC produced and has built over the years.

‘It’s true the BID came in with some money that changed the front page and some of the direction but over the years it is the TIC that has built it. It is the number one website for Dart­mouth and we want to hold on to that if we can but we do need some investment.’

Director Nigel Way said the TIC would be there until August 31, the end of its financial year, delivering the service ‘you want and visitors want’. He added: ‘There is a real desire by the directors to leave a heritage of something that which will good for the town.‘

But he said keeping things going did become ‘tiring’ for the volunteers and the TIC would not be ‘doing it s dirty washing in public’.

Mrs Cairns-Sharp said it was the subscribers that funded the TIC – so far £80,350 had been secured this year, a drop on previous years.

She said this was due to a number of reasons, including internet advertising and the BID levy taking surplus income.

‘But that is where we are and it’s not through the want of trying,‘ she said.

‘We are changing the business model and that is also where everyone else is in the country even if you look at Torbay, subscriptions are falling.

‘And when you are relying on them, how ever much you make in the centre it’s not enough to run it.’

She said over 4,000 volunteer hours were put in at the centre last year but more helpers were needed. ‘We are very passionate about what is a vital free service for the town,’ she said.

‘We are very proud of the small TIC team, which had won awards but not chased awards.

‘We received over 100,000 visitors in the centre last year as well as welcoming passengers on cruise ships and steam trains,’ she said.

And she stressed the TIC had not directly received any cash injection from the BID other than the £18,000 spent on developing the TIC website to reflect the Dartmouth Every Time branding. ‘So you could say we have benefited from the BID marketing campaign but so have all business in Dartmouth,’ she said.

Mr Way said expenditure had remained remarkably consistent over the years but what had let the TIC down was turnover had fallen away. ‘However, we are working alongside the BID and there will hopefully be a way forward and it was not all doom and gloom,’ he said.

Director Chris Woodwark said the TIC also looked after the Newcomen Engine and was responsible for paying heat and light and rates on its building.

Dartmouth mayor Cllr Rob Lyon said he could not predict the future but he firmly believed the town would always have a TIC.

‘I think there is a will for everybody to join together to try to make it work,’ he said.

‘How it will end up looking I am not sure but I am absolutely certain that it will remain open along with the Newcomen museum and we will have a Dartmouth centre that we will all be proud of.’