A youth charity that operates in Petersfield and Alton has expressed its disappointment over Petersfield Town Council’s (PTC) decision to slash funding.

The King’s Arms is a charity that provides a variety of services for young people, such as after school sessions to relax, wellbeing support, mentoring and more.

In a full council meeting in February this year, PTC made cuts to its revenue grants, impacting several community organisations.

King’s Arms Youth Projects was awarded £1,554 for 2025/2026, the charity said it was previously £10,000, which is a decrease of around 84 per cent.

King Arm’s chief executive Caroline Aeschliman said: “It is quite a substantial reduction, and really difficult because it's our 25th anniversary, and we have been thinking over the last year about our celebration for November.

“It was a sort of last minute notification with two weeks before the funding would normally start. We are looking at cutting services and the funding scene at the moment with rising costs and competitiveness for grant funding and funding in general is very hard.”

PTC was unable to comment at time of writing, but referred to what it said in its budget statement.

The statement read: “Our priority has been to continue delivering the valued services our community relies on while also planning for the future.

“We’ve worked hard to find cost-saving measures that do not compromise the quality of our services. We’ve also reviewed and reallocated our reserves to support key projects, helping to ease financial pressures.

“The budget will allow us to sustain our services, care for our cherished community spaces, and build a more financially secure future.”

In addition, the council cited several financial pressures:

  • Rising costs for running its services, including higher maintenance and utility expenses, and contractual price increases.
  • Previous efforts to keep precept increases low, even as overall costs have continued to rise.
  • A predicted decline in investment income due to lower interest rates and other external pressures.
  • Higher staffing costs in line with national agreements, with an increase in employers’ National Insurance contributions.

To try and help fill in the funding gap, Petersfield Round Table provided The King’s Arms with £2,000.

Round Table chair Josh Thomas said: “It would have been unthinkable for the Kings Arms to have to cease some of the hugely valuable work they are doing with teenagers.

“We hope this donation along with an event we are trying to organise over the summer in aid of the organisation will help them as they continue to strive to serve the young people of this area.”

Caroline added: “We’re still going ahead with our campaign, in honour of our anniversary and for the youth work that we have been doing in Petersfield for the last 25 years. A pound a year for 25 years and we're looking for a thousand people that would do that, to help cover some of the deficit we have.”

More details about the 25th anniversary campaign will be released in due course.