SANCTUARY BOSS ‘SELLING POSSESSIONS’
THE owner of an alpaca sanctuary that was fully booked last year has had to sell almost everything she owns just to keep the business afloat.
Helen Housley, 49, quit her job and put her life savings into opening the Alpaca Sanctuary and Life Enrichment Centre in Pontardawe in early 2020. Speaking in December last year, Helen said the meetand-greet sessions with the rehomed alpacas at the venue were sold out, with a long waiting list of people eager to meet the woolly residents at the sanctuary.
The instantly popular attraction offered hour-long interactive sessions with the animals as well as sessions tailored for children with autism and other disabilities to enjoy the sensory benefits of meeting the animals.
Helen later moved the sanctuary to the site of a former farm she had purchased in Llandyfan, Ammanford, after she was forced to close the business in December 2020 due to the latest lockdown restrictions being put in place. This is when her problems began.
There has been a delay she did not anticipate on her application for a change of use at the sanctuary’s new location – and she said she had been forced to sell her car, caravan, children’s kayaks and other belongings just to keep going while she waited for her application to be approved. Helen said her credit cards were maxed out, she was unable to pay her mortgage and ineligible for any help from the Welsh Government.
“It’s been one extreme to the other. We were fully booked with 35 people on the waiting list at Christmas but we’ve gone from that to not even being able to open since December. So you can imagine how horrendous it has been,” she said.
“The only reason I’ve been able to carry on is that people have been donating food for the animals. They’ve been dropping food off at the gates. I can just about cover my bills with universal credit. I’m not a charity and the last thing I ever thought I’d be doing is asking for help to feed the animals. The worry is making me ill, I’ve lost about a stone in weight already.”
In March 2021 Helen applied for a change of use for the 27-acre farm she bought in the shadow of Carreg Cennen Castle, from agricultural to leisure and tourism – but she has not been able to open yet because of issues with the paperwork and extra waiting times in the planning process due to the pandemic.
Without the change of use application being granted, Helen cannot open a tourist business at the site or make an income from the meet and greet sessions that proved so popular at the previous rented site in Pontardawe.
She said she employed an architect to submit full planning permission to Carmarthenshire County Council after her first two preapplications were returned as invalid or incomplete. This was logged with the council on May 27 and is now on an eight-week clock for processing.
It costs around £20 a day to feed the 19 alpacas, llama, donkey (and foal), pig, three quails, 10 guinea pigs, six cockerels and four sheep at the sanctuary on the site of a former farm, according to Helen.
Helen added that she’d had to decline requests to rehome alpacas and llamas currently because she could not afford to fence off other fields to accommodate them until she was able to open and sell tickets.
“Although it’s not a charity, the more money we make the more animals we can rehome. Now we have more land, people are asking ‘can you rehome a rabbit?’ or ‘can you rehome a horse?’ but we can’t afford to. I had to say no to 20 girl alpacas and 44 llamas who needed rehoming, unfortunately,” she said.
The plans for her son to open a mountain-biking business at the site as well as a campsite have also been put on hold for now while they go through the planning process.
“If we lose summer holidays, that’s the main chunk of income. I’m thinking more towards Christmas now or the October half-term, hopefully. I’m definitely going to lose the summer, though, and it’s going to disappoint so many people. Some of the autistic children who come to see the alpacas are asking why they can’t come anymore,” Helen said.
You can donate money for food at the Alpaca Sanctuary on Amazon or with Paypal for cash donations.