‘Is anyone up for a fight?’ The battle for the soul of Samaritans

Seven years ago, Samaritans volunteers Mark and Carol saved a stranger’s life. On the other end of the phone was a “very distressed” man. He had climbed scaffolding to the top of a building and was threatening to jump.

As Mark talked to him, Carol called his local Samaritans to alert volunteers. Eventually the man came down off the scaffolding and they “walked” him street by street to safety.

Still on the phone, the man arrived at his local Samaritans branch. When he knocked on the door, a cup of tea was waiting for him. “That was an amazing feeling,” recalls Mark.

For years, Mark and Carol have taken phone calls like this at their branch on a quiet residential street in Worthing, on England’s south coast. Worthing Samaritans, a local fixture for 57 years, has 100 listening volunteers, with costs funded by the local Samaritans shop. It has saved countless lives.

Three weeks ago, they were abruptly told in an online meeting with national managers that both branch and shop would shut in six weeks. They were aware Samaritans had a 10-year branch closure strategy, but it came as a shock to hear that Worthing – thriving, solvent, well-run, efficient – would face the axe.

“Everybody was crying … tears were just pouring out,” said Jim, who has volunteered at the branch for 10 years. In shock, Carol stayed on the line when the meeting finished. “There were a few other people who didn’t hang up … And I just said, wow, is anyone up for a fight?”

Worthing now finds itself at the centre of what is shaping up to be a nationwide battle for the soul of one of the UK’s best-known charities, with local volunteers – and MPs and councillors – openly questioning the wisdom of a strategy that will, over time, see the closure of half of Samaritans’ 200 UK branches.

Worthing is one of seven branches earmarked for closure, alongside Grimsby, Orkney, Caithness, Shetland, Scunthorpe and Stornoway. Halifax and Huddersfield will close and merge into Bradford, while Inverness and Elgin will merge at a new location.

The 73-year-old emotional distress and suicide prevention charity, which relies on a cast of committed, well-trained listening volunteers backed by local fundraisers, is not an obvious hotbed of rebellion. But that is starting to change.

“I am not an activist or a disrupter and indeed this is the last thing I wish to be doing,” said one volunteer with more than three decades of service, explaining why they contacted the Guardian to protest at the closure of their local branch. “But I simply cannot let this go. My own thoughts are that Samaritans is being taken forward to oblivion.”

For its part, Samaritans’ national leadership is equally adamant that without change the charity faces oblivion. Donations are flatlining, costs are rising and demand for services is soaring. Privately, it admits it is struggling to maintain its ageing, 14,000-strong army of listening volunteers. It cannot answer all its calls.

Samaritans’ chief executive, Julie Bentley, recently warned an internal meeting of volunteers that the charity was on “a burning platform”.

“The harsh truth is that if we don’t do anything we are going to start to see branches failing, and we can’t let that happen,” she said, according to a detailed report of the meeting obtained by the Guardian. The branch structure, she warned, was no longer sustainable. This was not scaremongering, she insisted, but reality.

The strategy calls for fewer, larger branches, concentrated in large towns and cities with a greater pool of potential volunteers. Even successful branches, deeply rooted in their communities and with healthy volunteer numbers – such as Worthing – would close because, in effect, they were in the wrong place.

Bentley said: “I have been asked many times: ‘What can I do to save my branch? If I can get to 150 volunteers, does that mean that branch will be safe?’ And my response to that is: ‘I really advise you not to think about it through the lens of saving branches, because strategic location is out of your control. It is just a fact based on data.’”

This approach has infuriated volunteers who will become surplus to requirements because they live too far from the new branches. There is also resentment at being brutally dumped by distant overlords. “Only [they] would reduce the service to improvement in technology, ignoring the human warmth and contact that is the very core of being a Samaritan,” said one volunteer.

Some veterans say the management’s hard-headed approach is of a piece with the charity’s brutal sacking last year of volunteers who spoke out publicly against closures. Volunteers unsuccessfully tried to bring an unprecedented no-confidence motion in Samaritans’ chair, Keith Leslie, and the closures may inflame those tensions.

Samaritans insists it deeply values its volunteers. While it accepts the changes will be hard for some, it says its ultimate duty is to callers. The strategy, it says, will make operations more efficient – enabling it to answer more calls, cut waiting times and attract more call handlers.

“Despite answering over 3 million calls for help in 2025, some callers still didn’t get through, especially in crucial overnight hours. We need to change that, so no one is left alone in their darkest hours,” said Bentley.

The Worthing branch has more than 7,000 signatures in its Stop the Closure petition, as well as the support of 37 local councillors. “They [Samaritans] have made a mistake and we want them to rethink it,” said Jim. “We are not being militant.”

Carol suspects many Worthing volunteers will not transfer to the Brighton branch: it’s too far or too inconvenient. And that, she reflects, is heartbreaking. “For every individual one of us, it took us a lot to become a Samaritan. And it does change your life and it changes you – it’s a huge part of who you are.”