A CARE group for the elderly in Bishop’s Waltham is just months away from closure, a councillor has warned.

A lunch group meets at the town’s Jubilee Hall every Tuesday, but organisers appealed to the parish council for a grant after it began to struggle with the hall fees.

Cllr Robert Shields said: “If you look at its accounts, the lunch club has got about eight months left in its existence. It won’t last a year.

“The needs of these people are much larger than, say, the needs of people enjoying themselves at the Bishop’s Waltham Festival.”

At recent a parish council meeting on Tuesday (May 14), Mary Freemantle, a volunteer cook at the club, said the group had been forced to cut its hours.

“The club is supporting the needs of the elderly of Bishop’s Waltham and has done so for 40 years.

“But we’re going to cut our hours and we’re going to use the hall from 11am to 2pm – a reduction of two hours.”

Mrs Freemantle said that a rise in hall fees, coupled with a freeze in the club’s funding from Hampshire County Council, was at the root of the problem.

Cllr Shields also noted there were two other such clubs, running on Mondays and Thursdays, and urged the groups to join together.

“Why are the three clubs working differently? Trying to get them to work together would be pretty difficult but in the long term future that has to be done.”

The parish council voted to award the group a £1,000 grant.