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The Town Hall has been accused of hitting the most vulnerable after cutting funding for a “godsend” service for people suffering from dementia.

St Luke’s Community Centre, in Finsbury, has been told that after October it will no longer receive £26,000 a year for its early dementia service.

The service provides therapies, day care and a healthy meal for 11 people living with the condition in the EC1 area.

Islington Council cash pays for a driver and a care worker to help users get to and from the centre in Central Street safely.

Islington has the highest diagnosis rate for dementia in London and the fifth highest in the country, according to a council report.

Up to 60 other users who struggle to get around regularly benefit from the free transport.

The news has left many fearful that they won’t be able to access St Luke’s services, describ­ed by chief executive Michael Ryan as a “lifeline”.

“I will be so down in the dumps if this happens,” said 82-year-old Ellen Travers, who has dementia and visits St Luke’s twice a week.

“It will break my heart,” said Joan Barnett, who visits every weekday but can only get to St Luke’s in the free van.

“I had a breakdown and these people helped me get out of it. I’ve made a lot of friends here.”

Another user said they feared being “stuck inside staring at four walls” and becoming “paralysed as a person”.

Mr Ryan warned that the cut was a false economy for the council. “If just one person needs to go into a care home because of this it will cost the council more than £26,000 in a year just for that person,” he said. Isolation and lack of brain activity are known to bring on dementia.

St Luke’s contributes another £26,000 to the service, not including the costs it already bears in providing facilities and room space.

The community centre received a letter informing it that cuts would be made in February but this was reversed after appeals from Mr Ryan. He then received another letter in June saying the cut would be made from the start of October.

“If this happens, something will have to go,” he said. “We want the council to really think about the effect this will have on people’s lives, rather than just something on a spreadsheet.”

The service provides valuable respite for partners and carers who look after those with dementia at home. One carer said one of his clients feared going into a home and being separated from his wife of 60 years.

Barbara Sheridan, a regular at St Luke’s, said: “At the end of the day there is not another place like this centre for help with dementia. Some people don’t have a life at home without this magnificent centre. Why hit the most vulnerable? No one knows when dementia is going to hit – it could be the councillors in 20 or 30 years.”

A council spokesman said it placed “great value on the good work that St Luke’s do”. He added: “We’re working closely with St Luke’s to find ways to continue a transport service, with one option being that this service is delivered in-house by the council to provide better value for money at a time of deep government funding cuts.”

Mr Ryan said he was sceptical about the idea.

St Luke’s has set up a petition to stop the cut at www.change.org/p/islington-council-review-the-decision-to-cut-funding-for-early-dementia-service-at-st-luke-s