Urban Forum, community group support organisation and former Office for Civil Society strategic partner, is to close after members voted to disband.

It follows the community group umbrella body's decision last year to make all its four staff redundant as part of plans to restructure into a ‘more streamlined and mobile’ organisation.

Speaking to civilsociety.co.uk, Gethyn Williams, chair of Urban Forum, said the organisation had previously got funding from a range of central government departments, this had more recently dried up and the charity's ability to attract new funding had decreased.

“We are also in competition with bigger providers and there has been lots of consolidation,” he said.

Urban Forum was a former strategic partner of the Office for Civil Society, but lost its funding of around £100,000 a year when the department decided to phase out the strategic partner programme.

Its current income is around £108,000 - down from £319,123 the previous year.

When asked if the organisation had considered merging to make its future more viable, Williams said it members were keen for the organisation to keep its “distinctive voice”.

It was run without paid staff for around a year, but Williams said running a registered charity with very little resource was difficult.

He said the trustees will enshrine a legacy for Urban Forum and capture lessons it has learned, as well as finding a new way for members to get similar sorts of information it once provided. It is consulting with its members on this work.

Williams suggested that Urban Forum’s troubled recent history was a reflection of the changing relationship between central and local government.

“A main objective of the organisation was to help a local voluntary audience influence local decisions made by central government. We’d be lobbying central government on what to tell local authorities to make it easier for charities,"  he said. 

“Now local authorities make these decisions for themselves and central government does not have a role.”

He added that local organisations are increasingly looking less to national infrastructure bodies for advice and support and doing it themselves.

Urban Forum is one of a couple of former Office for Civil Society strategic partners which have closed down. Last year the Council for Ethnic Minority Voluntary Organisations dissolved.

Commenting on Urban Forum's fate on Twitter, @jasonnuttall said it was "sad news", while trustee @adriennetaylor said the organisation would be missed.