Defiant: Pensioners block two lanes of traffic outside Wandsworth Town Hall last month. CM1396-A

Wandsworth Council has cut £190,000 in grants for next year. In the second of a series of articles profiling the threatened schemes, Charles Heymann looks at the role of the borough's lunch clubs for elderly people: Volunteer Denis Kane could not believe it when he saw Wandsworth Council's report justifying cutting its £20,866 grant to the Peabody Trust Clapham lunch club.

"Luncheon clubs in particular have a limited role, centred on the provision of a midday meal to a generally more mobile user group," it read.

"While providing a service that is valued by their users, this cannot be regarded as a priority for the limited resources of the social services department"

After years working for the lunch club on the Peabody Estate just off St John's Hill which has 80 regular visitors and prepares between 35 and 55 lunches a day he was scathing about the council's cost-cutting arguments.

"It is a nonsense statement," he said. "There are clearly very frail, very disabled people who could not get to an alternative. And there are no alternatives."

He spoke of an elderly woman who had not left her flat for six months following a bad accident and had seen virtually no one apart from a physiotherapist who told the club about her.

An outreach worker found she did not even own a pair of shoes.

A year after coming to the club though, she was well enough to go on a residential trip with other local pensioners.

Another elderly person, Mr Kane said, had not been outside for so long, she did not have a front door key. The club had to have a new one cut so she could have a hot midday meal.

He argued the lunch club's contract with the council did not stipulate the clubs being obliged to attract the more disabled pensioners for the grant to continue.

Being open for all, he said, was central to what it did and with the Peabody Trust saying it would not pick up the council's tab the future looks bleak.

"We are not doing the work of social services but we are working with a lot of people who, if we didn't work with them, would end up in the care of social services.

"They will be worst affected by this cut."

It is a story repeated across the three other lunch clubs which the council are threatening with cuts adding up to a further £50,000 on top of other cuts to several lunch clubs in recent years.

The council's action comes before a social services review later this year, which is evaluating a report by the London Government Association arguing services for older people should be incorporated into mainstream activities like adult education and leisure centres.

But it is the lack of acknowledgement that the clubs do more than just cook lunch which has angered volunteers.

They said by offering activities ranging from line-dancing and tai chi which is offered by the Clapham club giving out information about pensioners' services and helping with benefit claims, the clubs are saving the council money by their members not using day centres costing £30 a day for pensioners assessed as having high care needs.

Without the lunch clubs, they argued, none of these activities could take place.

Sarah Rackham, head of the Katherine Low Settlement lunch club, which is facing a £2,585 cut, told last month's social services overview and scrutiny committee, that volunteers chased up regular members who fail to turn up and spend free time encouraging others to come.

"I'm sure that we are touching the tip of the iceberg but the point is that we cannot reach everyone in need.

"If we were able to do more we would do."

It is a sentiment which the 13 part-time workers and volunteers at the award-winning Regenerate.com share.

Founded five years ago by Mo Smith and her son Andy, Regenerate runs the Roehampton lunch club for 70 pensioners and a huge range of youth activities on the Alton and Ashburton Estates.

But the impending £30,976 cut threatens a knock-on effect on its separate Rise service, which offers day care, outings and residential holidays for 45 disabled and isolated elderly people, many of whom have not been outside for up to two years.

Wandsworth Primary Care Trust is looking at its continued funding for Rise if the lunch club closes, while the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund is threatening to remove its £22,000 funding for a youth worker.

In an organisation which relies on an annual income of about £250,000 a year, these are bleak times.

Mrs Smith said that without the lunch club, many of its elderly members would become depressed and isolated again.

"It is not just offering a hot meal, it is helping their mental and emotional well being as well. If you are old and on your own you can so easily get to the point where you don't want to go out.

"The council is not taking its responsibilities for the elderly seriously and it really is denying its responsibility by taking this away."

Volunteer Grant Gigg, who organised a massive free party for 200 Roehampton pensioners last summer, said the lunch club had galvanised dozens of local people into building the Alton community again.

"It has made such an impact in such a short time, it is frustrating to see what is happening. If the council had done it, it would be patting itself on the back and giving itself awards."

For more information or to give donations to the threatened clubs please write to the following addresses or contact the clubs by telephone.

Regenerate.com, Roehampton Methodist Church, Minstead Gardens, SW15 4EB. Tel: 020 8878 8648.

Katherine Low Settlement: Pensioners Lunch Club, 108 Battersea High Street, SW11 3HP. Tel: 020 7223 2845/6471.

Ashburton Lunch Club, 101-102 Carslake Road, SW15 3DD. Tel: 020 8789 8425.

Clapham Luncheon Club, Peabody Hall, Peabody Estate, St John's Hill, SW11 1UZ. Tel: 020 7223 2076.

10:05am Friday 5th March 2004

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