ONE of Thurrock's landmarks, that has served as a beacon for wildlife preservation and care for more than a decade, could soon be shut down.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), which is plagued by financial difficulties, has reviewed its operations and its visitor centre and cafe at Rainham Marshes, adjacent to Purfleet-on-Thames, is set to be a casualty.

The charity has announced that the shop and cafe at the nature reserve will shut for good in January. Complete closure could follow.

Rainham Marshes is a 1,600 acre nature reserve run by the RSPB and its showcase is the visitor centre.

The Thames riverside site is a mixture of former army ranges and landfill sites, bought by the RSPB from the Ministry of Defence in 2000.

Previously it was considered as a possible location for a theme park in the 1990s, though ultimately it lost the entertainment battle with the Paris site that is now Disney-Europe.

A viewpoint for nature. The award-winning centre.

The nature reserve between the Thames and the A13 is home to a diverse range of bird species, wetland plants and insects. Historically it had been medieval grazing land - an increasingly rare habitat in Britain.

The land was only saved from the ravages of development by a strange quirk of fate. It had been used by the Ministry of Defence as a firing range, but it was largely untouched apart from the odd leftover shell and became a green beacon on the periphery of Thurrock.

The current reserve's modernistic two floor centre was one of the major projects of the ill-fated Thurrock Thames Gateway Development Corporation which invested almost £2 million in creating it.

The centre won six awards for its BREEAM sustainable design, including a Green Apple Award, Regeneration and Renewal Award and a Royal Institute of British Architects National Award.

In 2006, Graham Wynne, the RSPB Chief Executive, said: "The Thames Gateway is a fantastic area for wildlife. It is vital that the people, who live and work in the area, and those who visit, have access to its magnificent open spaces. If they do not, there is a real risk that the regeneration will fail to realise its full potential.

"The RSPB is working across the whole Gateway to deliver publicly accessible green spaces that bring benefits both to the wildlife that depend on these sites and to the communities that surround them.

"RSPB Rainham Marshes is the furthest advanced of our projects and we look forward to working with our partners on both sides of the river to help deliver a sustainable Thames Gateway that we can all be proud of."

Then government minister Ruth Kelly, ironically now the chair of Thames Freeport which is another government-generated quango set to regenerate Thurrock, said at the time: "The Thames Gateway is about much more than new jobs and homes, we also want to see quality green spaces like this fantastic RSPB centre for people to enjoy, high design standards for new homes and strong visible leadership."

And the future of the other elements at the centre remain in doubt beyond the next 12 months.

The view from the cafe - that is set to be closed.

The charity said that it will be "looking at how the visitor centre operates" during that time frame and added that the "future management of the visitor centre will be explored", although it will remain open.

The Schools on Reserves education programme - that encouraged school visits and education sessions guided by RSPB learning officers at Rainham Marshes - will be scrapped.

The charity said: "Like any responsible charity, we are always trying to make sure that the money that we receive from our generous members and supporters is spent in the best possible way to help nature.

"This work has meant really focusing in on what each site's unique contribution to our strategy and mission should be.

"Our staff who work on these sites and our incredible volunteers who do so much are the beating heart of what we do.

"But to remain strong and viable we need to make some changes."

A spokesperson for the RSPB added that a "number of staff" will be affected by the cuts at Rainham Marshes, but said they do not know the exact number at this stage.

The charity says it is "working hard to reduce redundancies wherever possible."

The shop and the cafe will be open until Christmas, but the charity has said there may be some changes to cafe and shop opening times in the coming weeks.