A CLUB for the elderly and disabled in Birmingham is set to close after 40 years because the city council is taking away its grant.

Shard End Day Centre receives £14,000 a year from the council’s Adults and Communities Directorate.

But now it has been told its grant will stop at the end of March because of council cutbacks.

Devastated members were told the news this week and now the club is frantically scratching around for grants and handouts from other organisations in a bid to keep going.

The centre meets twice a week at Shard End Community Centre and has around 30 members.

It receives £3,500 a quarter from the council which it uses to pay for the hire of the room and for two cooks to prepare the members’ meals.

Members, virtually all of whom live alone, pay £3.75 each per session and for this receive tea, coffee, a hot lunch and during the summer, day trips.

Organiser June Manders said: “We can’t survive without the grant as the small fee we charge members won’t cover our costs.

“If we can’t get more funding, come April we will have to close, which will be awful after 40 years.”

Mrs Manders said she was putting in grant applications to everyone from Tesco to Birmingham Community Foundation.