We’re sorry to say that we’ll be closing at the end of 2017. It’s been a great few years, but for lots of reasons it wouldn’t be sensible to continue any longer.

We have a choice about whether to renew our lease for another five years from early 2018. After looking at how likely it is that we’d be able to run a viable business throughout that time, we’ve decided: not likely enough to be worth the risk.

If we call time at the end of the year, we can go out making sure that everyone gets paid for their work, all our suppliers get paid, and we don’t leave a mess behind. We can do it with dignity and on our terms. If we commit to another five years, it may well not be so clean and tidy.

There are lots of reasons why we’ve reached this conclusion, but the simplest explanation is that it’s become more and more difficult to be profitable. We’ve looked at lots of things that we could do to make more money, or spend less. But it’s difficult to see a solution that avoids compromises we don’t want to make.

We’re so grateful for the support we’ve had over the last four years. It’s been a humbling and joyful experience to meet so many great people, to have so many people help us out, and to be part of an enormous, diverse and wonderful network of individuals and organisations who stand for something better than profit-at-all-costs. We’ll try to thank as many of you as we can in person over the coming months.

So we’ll be gone from Quay Street come Christmas. At the moment it’s our intention to continue as normal until then, but that may change as people find other work. We’ll keep you posted.

We’d really love these last few months to be fun and full of bikes, talks, workshops, music and all the other stuff that brings people together under our roof. It’s sad to be going, but it’s good to have been here, so we’d like to celebrate that. Please join in if you’d like to.