A DECISION on whether to close Pill's well-used resource centre will be taken at the end of this month.

The future of the centre, at Baltic Place, has been under threat for the past several months after bosses revealed they only had enough funding to keep operating until this Christmas. A series of meetings are planned over the next few weeks with various organisations to see if a funding deal to save the centre, which opened in 2002, can be struck.

If no cash is forthcoming, the resource centre, which helps more than 5,000 people a year, will close for good by Christmas.

The centre, which costs about £75,000 a year to run, is managed by the Pill Community Foundation.

Foundation chairwoman Jane Hunt said: "The current situation is that we are in discussions with a number of partners and are looking at our funding options. If nothing comes to fruition in the next few weeks, then we will have to consider winding up the resource centre. The trustees are meeting at the end of November and it will be then that they will have to bite the bullet and say whether we are going to close down."

Mrs Hunt, who has been involved with the centre since it opened, said they had been talking to North Somerset Council purse holders about the possibility of funding for the centre.

She said: "North Somerset has said it supports us verbally and recognises that we are working in a deprived area of the district. However, no funding has come forward."

The centre faced the same crisis at the end of last year because of problems with funding running out.

Following frantic funding bids, grants were awarded allowing it to continue until the end of 2008.

The centre, which opened in 2000 with a Government Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) grant and was then funded by the Lottery, opens each day. It deals with 5,500 enquiries each year and runs IT, food hygiene and first aid courses. The Citizens Advice Bureau, local solicitors and the benefits service also run regular surgeries at the centre.

A youth drop in, which attracts about 30 youngsters to each session, is held twice a week and a range of activities are organised throughout the holidays for young people in the village.

If it closes, all these services are likely to be lost in the village.

Mrs Hunt said: "It would be a terrible shame if the centre closed and all these services lost.

"It is likely that the youth who attend the drop in will be forced back out into the streets.

"We are trying our best and making last-ditch attempts to save the centre, but unless things change, we will have no alternative but to close."