TIMBERSCOMBE’S Orchard Social Club, which for the past 16 years has provided seven-days-a-week care and entertainment for the village’s elderly, lonely and disabled, has been saved from closure after residents and local organisations backed its fight for survival.

Magna Housing, the community housing association which is landlord of residents in the 29 bungalows in Timberscombe’s Orchard sheltered housing development and holds the lease of the club’s Old Dairy premises, had decided to surrender the lease after Christmas.

Magna had claimed there was not enough demand for the club’s services but the committee and its supporters mounted a campaign to get the decision overturned.

“We will contest this to the bitter end because we know how much the social club is needed in the village,” said founder and chairman John Goodall. “We help at least 200 people a week and we have been told it will devastate the village if the club has to close.”

This week, after meetings at its Dorchester headquarters, Magna Housing did an unexpected about-turn and extended the lease to the end of March while ways are explored of financing the Old Dairy in the future.

“I don’t think Magna realised just how important the Old Dairy is to the village,” Mr Goodall said. “This time they actually phoned me to say the lease was being extended when previously they never contacted me about the decision to close the centre.

“Letters have been sent to residents saying that they don’t intend to close the dairy and are looking at other ways to fund it, and people are over the moon. I hate to think what would happen to some families and older people in Timberscombe if the club wasn’t there to help look after them.

Mr Goodall paid tribute to the Free Press coverage of the threatened closure. “I don’t think we would have got this far without it,” he said. “The coverage we got has made a big difference in making people realise what an effect on the village losing the club would be.

“So many people depend on us for their mental and physical well-being and their social life. We can’t let them down.”