WANTAGE'S beloved Health and Wellbeing Centre is expected to close by October.

The elderly day centre on Stirlings Close, which hosts Ray Collins' annual Christmas lunch for the lonely, is set to shut to save money.

Oxfordshire County Council's cabinet agreed at the end of January to cut the number of day centres for the disabled and elderly in Oxfordshire from 22 to eight by the autumn.

It aims to cut the current £9.3m-a-year budget by a third – £3.14m – by 2019.

Mayor of Wantage Steve Trinder said he was 'very disappointed' by the news and added: "This centre provides useful amenity for the elderly and less mobile people locally.

"This is another diminishing of services available in the local area."

The decision needs to be signed off by full council on Tuesday, but is expected to go ahead.

Services currently hosted at Stirlings Close will be moved to Charlton Day Centre and the daily charge is expected to go up.

The decision comes less than five years after Wantage charity champion Ray Collins raised £5,000 towards an £11,000 makeover of the centre.

He recruited more than 100 volunteers who spent four days putting in new wallpaper, carpets, curtains and garden features.

Since then Mr Collins has held his Christmas Day lunch for the lonely at the centre three years in a row.

Speaking this week, Mr Collins said there would be tears at the centre's closure.

He said: "It would be a great shame.

"People are living longer and the elderly need somewhere to go.

"I am sure there will be a lot of tears around there: people don't like change so this will be a big shame to a lot of them."

He also said if the county council needed a hand getting the new centre ready he would be happy to help.

Mr Collins said he believed the Charlton Day Centre was about three times the size of Stirlings Close, adding: "I think there are positives in there."

Wantage town councillor St John Dickson said the council had received no official communication from the county that the centre was likely to close.

He said: "I hate the idea of losing more services, especially with thousands of people moving into the area.

"We've put a lot of effort into that place, making the garden over, and now it's all going to go to waste."

Harry Camm, 96, goes to the centre every Tuesday and Thursday to have lunch and meet friends.

Speaking last week, he said no one had told him the news the centre was likely to close and said he was 'very disappointed'.

The former machine tool fitter went on: "I rely on it because I'm housebound –I don't go out otherwise, and I've got no other family around."

The cuts agreed by county cabinet last month are less severe than 'option B' which would have seen just four centres retained across Oxfordshire.

It is understood that 30 day centre staff across the county will now have to re-apply for their jobs.

County councillor for Wantage and Grove Jenny Hannaby said that day centres services in the town had been 'saved'.

She pressured the council to keep some kind of day service running in Wantage, and at the cabinet meeting last month she thanked her colleagues for keeping the Charlton centre open, telling councillors 'we will make it work'.

Mrs Hannaby, who is also the chairman of the Friends of Stirlings Day Centre, said: "I am extremely pleased day services have been saved for the vulnerable who get fully paid by the council to be looked after.

"The self-funders will find it more expensive."

Mrs Hannaby also warned 'a lot of work' needed to be done on planning how client transport would now work.

The county council has not yet said what it will do with the empty building on Stirlings Close.

It is next door to the Stirlings care home run by the the Order of St John Care Trust, and Mrs Hannaby suggested it could become a private nursing home.

The Herald asked the county council what the capacity was at Wantage Health and Wellbeing Centre and at Charlton Day Centre.

The council responded in a statement: "We have modelled the daily numbers of people we anticipate for each location, taking into account current and anticipated usage and potential demand, to ensure that suitable locations were identified which provide sufficient space.

"Everyone’s safety and wellbeing is paramount, and we will ensure that there are a range of different spaces to meet different people’s needs."