AN ex-servicemen’s club in Chiddingfold finally looks set to call time after more than 50 years – and hand its members a payout of around £4,200 each.

Members have agreed to sell the three-year-old building to a developer who is expected to either demolish it and build new homes on the site, or turn the existing building into housing – dependent on planning permission from Waverley Borough Council.

The original club, in Woodside Road, was known as Clapton’s Club, and played host to many major rock acts from the 1960s, including Cream’s Eric Clapton, Genesis members Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford, Procul Harum and, of late, Modfather Paul Weller.

It was demolished and rebuilt in 2013 when it re-opened as The Villagers, funded by a new housing development.

Profits from the sale of the building, which sits on a third of an acre, which understood to be in the region of almost £750,000 will be dispersed among some 178 members of the club.

The new smaller clubhouse opened as a flexible meeting space that could be hired for function but closed in September 2015.

Looking unloved with weeds growing up around the attractive 4,000 sq ft timber-faced building, The Villagers, which cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to build, has faced an uncertain future.

But David Clift a long standing Chiddingfold resident who lives nearby and is a trustee of Chiddingfold Village Hall and Chiddingfold Baptist Church has in a last-ditch effort to save the building for the village, maintained it should remain as an “asset to the community for community use”.

He said: “It would take the strain off the popular village hall and the Baptist Church would be keen to run it as a community building through the week.

“The Baptist Church offered to buy the building without planning permission and apply for a change of use from a licensed premises, but our offer was turned down.”

Mr Clift said the Baptist Church had also successfully appealed to Waverley to list the building as an asset of community value under the Localism Act which devolves decision-making powers from central government control to individuals and communities.

The building also carries a 106 agreement that means it can only be used as a club for ex-servicemen and the community which the developer would have to overturn before it could be used for any other use.

But Jeremy Coombes, president of the ex-servicemen’s club told The Herald a contract had been signed with a developer.

Mr Coombes, who has been a committee member since 1972, and president for many years, said: “The club had been losing money ever since it re-opened and closed down because of a lack of money.

“I put £11,000 into it last year and it just couldn’t go on any longer. The trade was just not there.

“There is no place for it in the village. The place just dies at 7pm at night and nobody wants to pay. It is a great shame but the developer offered a price we couldn’t afford to refuse.”

The heating, lighting and business rates were £12,000 -£14,000 a year, he said.