The owner of a struggling cat cafe says she will not let her animals go without a fight as she battles falling customer numbers and rising costs.

Christeen Norfolk has run Cosy Cat Cafe - home to 13 rescue moggies - in Herne Bay since 2018.

She recently told patrons she would have to shut down the business in June, but heartbroken regulars urged her to launch a fundraiser to help it survive.

Now, the 67-year-old is looking at ways to keep the cafe going, vowing: “If we have to go, we will go kicking and screaming.”

Ms Norfolk told KentOnline that since the Covid pandemic hit, the amount of people coming through the door has dwindled.

“Some days we don’t have any customers at all,” she said.

“The thing is, all our commitments are the same every week.

“We still have the cat food to buy, we still have electricity, we still have heating.

“Even expenses like having the rubbish collected.

“Cat litter is classed as offensive waste and that's over £300 a month.

“We just have so many overheads and we've tried to cut them down as much as we can, but you've got to have heating on and the bill is around £300 a month for that too now.”

Despite offering low prices, the cat cafe - the first of its kind to open in Kent - has not been able to attract enough customers.

Mrs Norfolk explained: “We can't put our prices up.

“We've offered deals of two people to come in for £8.50 to have a drink.

“You can just about get a Costa for that. We can't go any cheaper.

“If we can't get people in with rock bottom prices, what else can we possibly do?”

Mrs Norfolk is looking at other options to keep the doors open.

She said: “Our plan is to turn part of the cafe into a kind of charity shop, just to raise funds for other cats and to keep our own cats going.

“It would still enable people to come in and see them because there are people who find the cat cafe very therapeutic.

“Sadly, there just aren't enough of those people around.

“People still go into charity shops. We get offers of donations to sell all the time, but we're not a charity shop, so we can't take in goods.

“I've probably got about 20 volunteers who are all up for doing something rather than having to re-home the cats.”

They also plan to rent out cabinets in the store for small craft businesses to exhibit their work.

The business owner says she will fight to keep the felines together, rather than send them off to new homes, as most of them have health conditions or were cruelly treated by former owners.

She said: “We've got cats that we've all worked with so hard to give them a really good quality of life.

“We've got cats who were terrified of humans, who are now very sociable, and to pass them on to someone else and set them back would just break our hearts.

“It’s like anyone having to give up their own pets.

“I don't think we'd be in a position to let people have them because they've had such bad starts in life.

“They would have to stay with our volunteers. But we won’t go without a fight.”

Ms Norfolk says customers asked her to launch a GoFundMe to keep the cafe going until the summer.

“It was a real last resort,” she said.

“We're delighted that people want to support us. I think we've just got to give us our best shot and try something else.”