SIX cats will be giving people the chance to ‘paws’ for thought when a new cafe opens in Bournemouth next month.

Pause Cat Cafe, based in Horseshoe Common in Bournemouth, will open to the public on Friday, February 17, to coincide with World Cat Day.

Visitors will meet black moggies, Bear, Clifford and Liquorice, ginger cats, Max and Pumpkin, and grey tortoiseshell, Petrus, all of which have come from rescue centres, while enjoying a range of vegetarian and vegan food and drink.

Three of the cats are already staying overnight at the cafe, with Jaya Da Costa, the owner of the cafe, making late-night visits to keep tabs on their wellbeing.

Jaya plans to have a total of 12 cats in the venue, but is bringing them in on a phased basis.

The first six will start life based upstairs during opening hours to get used to people being in the space before customers will be allowed to sit in the downstairs area.

She added: “We opened the website for bookings on Wednesday and we took £1,000 of bookings on the first day.

“It’s wonderful to get from the stage of an idea to this. I left a good job and took out loans to make this happen. Now it’s finally coming together. It’s great when you see how happy it makes people.”

Members of the public could back the venue through a £25,000 Crowdfunding campaign to bring the idea to the town.

Asked how this cafe compares to nine other cat cafe venues around the UK, Jaya said: “We’re doing something quite different as we are all about kindness. It’s a really calm environment, which is about therapy.

“It seems that women prefer the idea, but it’s not exclusively them. We want to help people to relax but it can also benefit them therapeutically. We also want to help the local community to promote animal welfare.”

Jaya said that visitors will be able to listen to a specially-created soundtrack in the cafe made up of relaxing songs for the benefit the animals.

Jaya said that they are allowing a small number of children to visit, who can learn how to respect animals. The cats will be continually monitored by staff and also trained vets who will offer their expertise to the cafe as animal welfare officers.

Admission is £5 per person and one-hour visits can be booked by going to Pausecatcafe.co.uk