DISTRAUGHT Bewdley pensioners have said they will have their social lives torn apart after being told their popular luncheon club will close at the end of the month.

Users of the WRVS service in Lax Lane said that losing the club would increase their feelings of isolation and remove a vital asset to Bewdley's elderly community.

The charity last Friday revealed it was pulling out from October 1 because the building, owned by Worcestershire County Council, was a health and safety risk.

A bid to find alternative premises for the service in Bewdley had reached a dead end, a statement said.

Pensioners, however, reacted with fury and dismay to the news.

Agnes Whetton, 83, said: "People are more important than anything to me. I can't see but they look after me and we have a good laugh.

"I don't know what we are going to do - just sit in the home and wait to die?"

Kathleen Bedford, who attends the club three times a week, said: "I shall just be on my own. It is the loneliness - we enjoy one another's company and we all get on well."

Wribbenhall resident, Hilda Jones, 81, said: "We nearly all live alone so it is the company we are going to miss. It is the only day I go out, when I go to the club on Fridays."

Pointing to the troubled bid to find a skateboard park for young people in the town, she added: "You have to be fit and well to live in Bewdley.

"You haven't got to be young or old - you have to be middle-aged."

Cate Gillespie said her 88-year-old mother, Muriel Pea, benefited hugely from meeting other people her age, three times a week. The club has about 60 members with one member aged 96.

She said: "It feels like they are saying 'they are only old people, they will get a meal at home' but it is not the same at all. This is a bombshell."

The building's landlord and tenant, however, have pointed the finger of blame at one another.

A statement from the WRVS Worcestershire said it was in an "unsafe condition" and alternative premises were being sought, but with little success. A spokesman told the Shuttle/Times and News the roof had fallen into disrepair and was leaking, posing a danger to electrics.

A spokeswoman for the county council hit back and said "significant sums of money" had been spent "keeping the property in a condition that complied with the requirements of environmental health officers".

Mayor of Bewdley, Tony Williams said this was not enough and pledged that county councillors for Wribbenhall and Bewdley, Liz Davies and Frank Baillie, would lobby for cash to keep it open.

He said: "This is criminal, absolutely criminal."