Organisations have until 4 October to bid to keep an elderly day service running in Twyford, after Age Concern Twyford said it will close after 38 years.

Any organisation that thinks it can run a day service for older people in Twyford has until Sunday 4 October to say so.

Wokingham Borough Council opened an expression of interest process on Friday 4 September. It is looking for someone to take on “the ongoing provision of community services for the elderly in Twyford”, after the charity that has run that service for 38 years said it is closing.

Age Concern Twyford & District announced last month that it will shut its day centre in Polehampton Close. Its closure notice is blunt about why. The trustees blame “ongoing financial pressures, including rising operating costs and a sustained decline in attendance, which have unfortunately made it no longer viable for the Charity to continue operating”. A final closing date has not been set.

What the centre does five days a week

The charity runs a Senior Social Club for people aged 55 and over, and a lunch club, from the same building. The Charity Commission register records its purpose as the relief of elderly people “in and around Twyford and surrounding villages”.

Its own description of the service covers a good deal more than lunch:

  • a resident chef cooking a hot lunch every weekday
  • a whole-day session, 10am to 3pm, with seated exercise, lunch and activities
  • a lunch club, 12pm to 2pm, and a craft club, 1.30pm to 3pm
  • weekly hairdressing and barbering, and a foot health practitioner
  • a take-home evening meal service
  • a handyman service for small jobs: key safes, lightbulbs, tap washers, hand rails, unblocking sinks
  • help filling in Attendance Allowance and Blue Badge paperwork
  • support for family carers

Membership costs £30 a year. Twyford Parish Council lists the club on its Warm Spaces page at £8.50 for a two-course homemade hot lunch and £4.50 for afternoon entertainment, open Monday to Friday with lunch served at about 12.30pm.

The register shows a charity that grew, then ran out of room

Age Concern Twyford & District is not a small operation. Its published accounts for the year to 31 March 2025 show income of £252,568 against expenditure of £255,229. Five years earlier its income was £48,590.

Spending has outrun income in four of those five years, though never by much. The register publishes earlier years rounded to the nearest £10, so the gaps work out at roughly £540 in 2021, £18,700 in 2022 and £1,950 in 2023, then the exact £2,661 in 2025. Only 2024 produced a surplus, of about £13,000.

Income and expenditure at Age Concern Twyford & District, 2021 to 2025

Two things are worth saying plainly about those figures. The first is that the charity files on time: the register shows every annual return and set of accounts for the past five years arriving on time, the most recent on 30 January 2026. The second is that they stop at 31 March 2025. The pressures the trustees describe, and the drop in attendance, are more recent than anything the public record yet shows.

The charity is registered as a charitable incorporated organisation, set up on 24 September 2015 and amended in September 2018. Its closure notice dates the service itself back 38 years. It has five trustees and ten volunteers, and its president is Lady Watt.

The council was not part of the decision

The borough council has been careful to set out where it stood. It says it “did not fund the direct running of Age Concern Twyford & District and was not involved in the initial decision that it close”.

What it is doing now is trying to keep something going in the building’s place. Council leader Cllr Stephen Conway said the centre “provides a social lifeline for people who may otherwise become isolated”. He also acknowledged the problem the trustees named. “We know the number of people attending the centre had been dropping and that is an issue we need to consider.”

He added: “Nothing has been decided yet and we cannot make promises, but we are working with the charity and others to see what might be needed and if there is a good solution.”

The council also says it is discussing short-term funding with the charity to hold the service together while longer-term options are worked out. Nich Crowson, chair of trustees, said the charity is “currently in discussions with the local authority, members and employees on how a service can be offered until a new provider can be put in place”.

What it means for you

  • If you or a relative uses the centre, nothing has closed yet and no final date has been set. The charity asks that enquiries go to info@ageconcerntwyford.org.uk. Its listed number is 0118 934 4040.
  • If you run an organisation that could deliver this, email procurement@wokingham.gov.uk with “Twyford Age Concern EOI” in the subject line. The window closes on Sunday 4 October. The council says it will also give advice on how to apply.
  • If you are looking for somewhere else in Twyford in the meantime, the parish council’s warm spaces list includes Bridge House Twyford, which runs a warm space and Blue Light Cafe on Wednesdays from 10.30am to 3.30pm, and Twyford Library, open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday in the same close as the day centre.
  • If you need help with a care assessment or funding, that is a borough council service rather than a parish one, and it sits with the same authority that sets your council tax bands.
  • If you want to know what happens next, there is no decision date in the council’s statement. The expression of interest window ends 4 October, and anything after that depends on who comes forward.

Sources