A 92-YEAR-OLD says he has been “given new life” after the day centre he attends was saved from closure.

Age Concern Bromley will close its Active Age Centre in Sussex Road, West Wickham, on Monday (November 1) because it is making a loss and is no longer financially sustainable.

But a group of four volunteers at the centre has stepped in to take over the lease from January, and the regulars at the centre expect to be able to use the hall nextdoor until then.

Cyril Rowe, a 92-year-old widower who has been attending the centre since 2005, said: “This is like being given new life, because if the centre had closed my life would have been over.

“When I heard the centre was closing, I thought ‘my life is over’ because the centre is my life, as everybody who comes here is like family to me.”

Mr Rowe, a retired electrical inspector who lives in Eden Park Avenue in West Wickham, said: “The centre staying open is a victory for community spirit.”

On Thursday (October 28) more than 100 people packed into the centre for what was originally going to be a farewell party, but the event turned out to be a celebration of it staying open.

The four volunteers who saved the centre, Beryl Talbot, Liz Hammond, Ann Herbert and Pam Hysted, say they did it because it is very important to the around 40 people who attend each day.

Mrs Herbert, 55, said: “This place is the life of some of the people who attend, and they would have been lost without it.”

The volunteers will rent the centre for an hourly rate, and expect to have it open for a few hours a day from Tuesday to Friday each week.

Age Concern Bromley’s director Maureen Falloon said the charity’s decision to close the centre had been taken “with a heavy heart”.

She said: “We took over the centre in 2005 and it was making a loss so we put a business plan together. We introduced various activities and classes and started doing lunches five days a week.

“But we were simply not getting the volume of people, and the trustees could not see a point where we would get to breaking even, so it was with a heavy heart that we decided to close the centre.”

She added: “Age Concern Bromley is an independent charity and has to fund itself. We cannot go to the national organisation and ask for money.

“Our trustees have a legal responsibility to spend our money carefully and wisely, and we could not sustain a centre that was making a year-on-year loss.”