The council where elderly services are being cut

On Friday afternoon, the Waterside Centre in South Norwood in Croydon is a hive of activity. A group of locals are chatting and laughing as they tuck into fish pie followed by peach crumble, both made on site. For some, it will be their only hot meal of the day – and the only time they talk to anyone else.

It is all thanks to Upper Norwood Association for Community Care (UNACC), a local organisation overlooking South Norwood lake that has been running for 53 years, providing elderly people in the south London town with food, friendship, and as one member 79-year-old Jenny Flynn said, family.

But less than a year from now, this vital support might not exist and UNACC’s doors may close for good, leaving its 100 members with nowhere to turn but the council, which is already struggling with