The closures mark new plans to tackle animal welfare crisis.

The Scottish SPCA has announced that it will be closing two of its rescue centres, as it sets out its 2024 goals to handle the animal welfare crisis.

The rescue charity will close two of its smaller animal rescue centres, in Ayrshire and Caithness, as it focuses its services on communities.

In the past year, the Ayrshire centre rescued 141 animals and the Caithness centre rescued 135 animals, with a high proportion of these cases coming from outside the local area.

The centres will close by the end of October 2023, after which remaining animals will be fostered, rehomed or moved to a different Scottish SPCA site.

Colleagues and volunteers at the rehoming centres have been offered redeployment into community outreach roles, with the aims of establishing new partners, recruiting new foster and rehoming families and educating local people on animal welfare.

The charity’s new goals will involve more community focus, with plans to increase its animal adoption rate by 15 per cent as well as tripling the number of foster families from 200 to 600 by the end of 2024.

The plans also include moves to tackle the cost of living crisis, by adding veterinary support to its Pet Aid service, which provides pet essentials to food banks and community larders for pet owners that struggle financially.

It will aim to increase the number of community partners it delivers pet supplies to in Scotland from 51 to 100.

The Scottish SPCA have also announced a partnership with Citizens Advice Scotland, which it believes will make it easier for people to get animal welfare support.

The partnership comes as Citizens Advice Scotland reveal that 137,000 people in Scotland have given up pets in the last financial year because of the cost of living.

Scottish SPCA chief executive, Kirsteen Campbell, said: “Animal rescue goes far beyond the walls of a rescue centre, and as more and more people turn to us for help to look after the animals in their lives, we need to adapt the way we do things to meet and get ahead of that growing demand.

“We’re delivering services straight to communities where we are most needed and where we can really make an impact; building on what we already do brilliantly, forging valuable partnerships with organisations such as Citizens Advice Scotland in order to address the complex needs in our communities by getting to the heart of issues affecting animals and people.”

Image (C) Scottish SPCA