A cafe owner has warned her business in the grounds of Cliffe Castle Museum in Keighley will struggle to survive following a drop in custom while the tourist attraction is shut for a multi-million pound refurbishment.

Cheryl Holdsworth said the cafe, which has remained open during the £3.3million revamp of Cliffe Castle and its surrounding park, had lost 90 per cent of its trade since the museum’s closure last April.

She said: “Normally I’d have so many people that I couldn’t cope.

“Now some days I don’t take in a single penny because nobody comes in. The weekends aren’t much better.”

She said the school summer holidays were usually busy, but this year she had only “a handful of visitors” each day, if she was lucky.

Mrs Holdsworth said she expected to make a loss this year and fears her business may not survive until the museum reopened next spring.

Cliffe Castle Museum closed last April to allow for an initial £370,000 refurbishment and rewiring project.

The ground floor is due to reopen to visitors in April next year, but upstairs renovation work is expected to take longer.

Bradford Council, which owns the museum and park, is also seeking money from the Heritage Lottery Fund for major improvements to the parkland.

The plans include a new cafe on the site of the existing cafe, which Mrs Holdsworth could take over. She bought the cafe two years ago, making a loss in the first year because she spent money on refurbishment, and last year breaking even.

She expected to turn a profit this year as the museum and other park attractions brought in hundreds of people on summer weekdays and year-round weekends. Mrs Holdsworth said although there were other attractions in the park, the museum attracted people to spend several hours at the site.

A Bradford Council spokes-man said there would be an announcement later this year on whether it had been successful in its bid for Lottery funding for the revamp of Cliffe Castle Park.