An animal rescue centre is planning a dramatic restructure – including loss of jobs – in an attempt to turn its finances around.

The Animals’ Refuge, at Wetheral, near Carlisle, costs about £800,000 a year to run and has operated at a loss for more than five years.

Bosses say changes must be made so that they can both balance the books and look after more animals.

The refuge has started a consultation which is looking into a raft of measures including making some staff redundant, transferring dogs and cats which have been at the refuge for the longest time to other rehoming centres, and starting to rehome horses again.

Director of the Animals’ Refuge, David Jordan, lives on site at the refuge, as does centre manager, Ian McKenzie, to make sure someone is always on hand.

Mr Jordan said: “The senior management, along with the trustees, have spent a great deal of time exploring how we work at present and how we could operate more effectively.

“We have taken advice from some of the country’s leading animal charities as well as our own staff, members and volunteers. The result is that we are proposing a number of changes to our operation, including a reduction in the number of employed staff.”

The consultation process is expected to last a couple of weeks. Staff pay is the biggest cost to the refuge, with 20 full-time and 12 part-time staff working with animals and at the refuge’s tea room and charity shop on site. It is not yet clear how many of the staff will be made redundant or whether any of them will choose to take voluntary redundancy.

About 30 volunteers also help out at the refuge centre, which currently has 29 cats and 31 dogs. The charity also looks after 43 horses and ponies, three goats, two cows and 12 sheep.

Some of the horses were saved from being butchered into meat in France and are almost wild. Although the refuge hasn’t rehomed horses for a number of years, it will start to do so again in about a month’s time.

Some of the dogs and cats which have been at the centre for a number of years will also be moved to The Dog’s Trust and Cat’s Protection.

Colin Powell, fundraising and communications manager, stressed that the refuge will continue to take animals in and that the point of the consultation is to find better ways of working.