Council leader defends stance over Maidenhead Jenner's Cafe risk of closure

The council leader has defended the Royal Borough’s stance over a long-running café in Maidenhead which is faced with closure.

Jenner’s Café in Riverside Gardens could be set to close in August, as the council, which owns the land, plans to redevelop it and build a new café when its lease expires.

The Royal Borough previously told the Advertiser that it wanted the site to deliver ‘best value for residents’, but more than 3,000 people have since signed a petition calling to ‘save Jenner’s from closure’.

While speaking to the Advertiser this week, Councillor Simon Werner was asked about the council’s stance on the future of Jenner’s.

He said: “There will always be a café in Riverside Gardens, there’ll always be a Riverside Gardens.

“Who leases the café can change, but apart from times when it’s being refurbished or rebuilt, there’d always be a café.

“There’s no kind of decision to change it fundamentally as a park with a café.”

Riverside Gardens, located off Ray Mead Road near the River Thames, features a park, car park, crazy golf course and Jenner’s Café, which is situated in a log cabin structure.

The café was set up in 1959 and operates through a lease agreement with the council, which owns the land.

The lease is held by Andrew Jenner, who owns the café.

The Royal Borough has said it wants to replace the existing café with ‘a modern building providing fully accessible public convenience facilities, as well as new commercial premises and council-run carparking that deliver best value for residents’.

Cllr Werner hit back at suggestions by some commenters that there were any plans to build houses on the land.

“We’ve got absolutely no intention whatsoever to sell to a developer and build houses,” he told the Advertiser. “A café will be there forever as far as I’m concerned.”

Asked whether it was right to view ‘best value’ as ‘just a monetary figure’, Cllr Werner said a café in Riverside Gardens was of ‘huge value to people’ and reiterated that one would remain there.

“Nobody’s taking away the café,” he continued. “At some point, it could be rebuilt to bring it in line with having accessible toilets.”

He added: “It’s not about who runs it, it’s about having an amazing café there, having amazing facilities. That’s what we all want, isn’t it?”

However, Marion Farley, who started the now thousands-strong petition to save the cafe, disagreed.

Ms Farley, 66, who has worked at Jenner’s for 10 years, said she had amassed a further 900 signatures through a written petition in the café.

Responding to Cllr Werner’s comments, she said if the council really wanted to ‘keep this community together, they should just reconsider’.

She said: “The community that comes in here, you’re going to kill everything that this café stands for.

“Forget, Mr Jenner and the lease and all of that.

“People actually come in here – and the staff, everyone’s going to lose their jobs as well, which they seem to forget.

“Why are they not even making a little bit of leeway? It doesn’t make sense.

“Please leave it alone.”