St David’s Hospice charity has announced the closure of its Bala, Blaenau Ffestiniog, Criccieth and Harlech shops.

The charity blamed the closures on rising costs and changes to the high street.

A St David’s Hospice spokesperson said: “Raising the level of funds required to keep our hospice services running is an ever-increasing challenge. As a charity we have a responsibility to ensure all our efforts are directed towards maximising income to keep delivering end-of-life care for our patients.

“Our decision to close our Bala, Blaenau Ffestiniog, Criccieth and Harlech hospice retail shops has not come easy to us as a charity which depends on the support of local people.

“We came to these decisions after having done all we can to ensure that these local shops can deliver a reasonable profit, but sadly, this has not been possible. Some of the reasons for this are the huge increases in inflation and energy costs increases over the past 12 months and how high street retail has changed since the pandemic, some of our shops are no longer profitable whilst others have not been profitable over the past five years.

“The stark truth is that if an income generation activity, including shops, cannot contribute to our funding requirements then we have a responsibility to address this. We want to be transparent about where your money goes when you donate to us.

“Developing end-of-life care services that meet the needs of south Gwynedd communities is one of our highest priorities. We hope to be able to share further information soon about how we aim to develop these and how the communities can help us achieve these aims in different ways.

“We are grateful to our staff for all their efforts in helping to sustain our services and also to our volunteers for their support during these difficult times.”