A PETITION has been launched to save a beauty spot cafe in East Renfrewshire.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the café based at Greenbank Gardens in Clarkston had to close its doors, leaving staff members worried about their employment.

Now more than 600 people have signed the campaign to reopen the National Trust for Scotland’s facility once restrictions are eased.

Nikita Rodger, a supervisor at Greenbank Gardens, told the Barrhead News: “At the start of lockdown, we closed like everyone else, with the intention of opening back up once restrictions were lifted.

“But now, I’ve had news that I’m at risk of redundancy because of the
plans not to reopen the cafe, and just reopen the gardens.

“We put on quite a few family events which brought in a lot of customers so it is devastating to put in all our hard work then to be told that we’re not reopening.”

A spokesman for the National Trust for Scotland told the Barrhead News that they ‘welcome’ the petition, hoping that it may bring forward new members.

He added that COVID-19 had led to ‘the loss of income’ putting the charity ‘in trouble through no fault of their own’.

He said: “We actually welcome this petition as it shows how much support there is out there for what the Trust does, and we appreciate people taking the time to show that 

“But it would help us even more if they also donated and joined as members of the Trust.

“Our charity is in trouble through no fault of our own – our only way back is to take action now and make some difficult choices if we are to live within our means due the loss of income resulting from the coronavirus.

“For the Trust to remain a going concern we have to decide which properties we can afford to open and when we can do that.

“In the case of Greenbank Garden, we hope to have the grounds open again early in July but we’re going to have to leave the café shut for the time being.

“This is solely due to it being virtually impossible to impose social distancing restrictions in its small and confined space.

“Hopefully, restrictions will be eased enough for us to be able re-open the café soon but there is still plenty to enjoy in Greenbank’s wonderful garden and woodland walk.”