Residents have claimed Downham is in the midst of its own Great Depression as the town prepares for yet another venue closure next month.

Users of the 999 Club – a drop-in centre offering support to vulnerable residents – say they feel "abandoned" following the decision to close the service due to a lack of funding.

Lewisham Council is now being urged to keep the doors of the much-loved centre open in a town that only has 14 restaurants, one doctors surgery and no train station.

Susan Cantwell, 60, of Doudhurst Road, who attends the centre in Downham Way to help her cope with depression, said: “There’s hardly anything left in Downham now, everything is being shut down.

"Downham just doesn’t have the facilities anymore and it really causes problems for the youngsters because it affects their behaviour. Everyone knows that Downham has bad press but like any place it has its good and with that you get the bad but not having the facilities there causes so many more problems for people."

Ms Cantwell went on: "It rips our hearts out and we are so angry that the centre is going to be taken away from us because there’s no funding left to keep it up and running. We may have mental health issues, we may be disabled but we are not stupid."

She added: "With these centres being withdrawn from the community it's making the area more depressed and really brings everyone down."

Loss of the 999 Club follows news of Downham's fire station closure in January, The Downham Tavern which reopened in July after being shut down for 18 months and the REAP Centre – an axed council-run community centre which reopened thanks to the efforts of the community in May.

999 Club chief executive Peter Wood said the charity almost went bankrupt in 2012 and a decision to close the Downham site was made because it is smaller than its sister centre in Deptford.

He said: "We regret the fact that the Downham centre will be closed. We realise there is a community there and that community has needs. We think it is sad really that as everybody tells us there are no other services in that part of the borough.

"I think it’s a bit hard to expect one small charity to shoulder all the responsibility in one area therefore we are having to close the centre because we raise all the money ourselves.

"We get just 1.8 per cent of our funding from the council which is the only statutory funding we get and the council’s grant will be cut next year so we are going to lose that funding."

He added: "It’s partly about why no one else is meeting the needs of that part of the borough except the 999 club and also in these difficult funding times where we are struggling to keep going."