WAVERLEY Borough Council has been accused of "short-changing" Haslemere over its hard-hitting cuts in grant funding.

If recommendations go through, some organisations will get nothing, while others face substantial cuts. The grants provide support for revenue costs for local voluntary and charitable organisations, delivering high-priority services.

One of several organisations which felt they met the criteria but which have been left out in the cold is the Haslemere and Waverley Alzheimer's Society, based at the Marjorie Gray Hall in Grayswood Road, and Guildford and Waverley Crossroads Care. Both were first-time applicants.

Chris Wyatt, the Alzheimer's branch service co-ordinator said: "I am staggered, it's the first I have heard of it and I am very shocked that we may not get anything. We get a minimum sum from social services but that is being hauled back because of funding difficulties."

The £18,000 grant application was needed for revenue funding and to pay for an outreach worker to visit people in their own homes and provide tsupport and advice on matters such as pensions and attendance allowance. Mrs Wyatt said: "It also allows people to continue to care for their loved ones in their own homes.

"We have 24 clients on our books from across Waverley; some live on their own and our day care centre is very important, " she said.

"This is a crazy system when patients are pushed out in the community faster than a blink of the eye, then not provided with back-up from the community. What's happening?"

Guildford and Waverley Crossroads Care, which had requested £91,665 to expand its services as part of a three-year project at the request of Surrey County Council, is also unlikely to receive anything. A registered charity, the organisation is part of 200 Crossroad schemes nationally which provides respite care for carers in their own homes, for all age groups and their abilities and disabilities, from birth to the elderly frail.

"We would be disappointed not to get anything," said scheme manager Andrea Watson, who has 78 families looking for respite care.

Two of the town's greatest assets, the museum and Haslemere Hall have both been hit hard, with the museum likely to receive none of the requested £5,000 grant and the Haslemere Hall getting less than half of its grant request. The reason given for the cuts is the level of reserves held by organisations.

The chairman of Haslemere Museum, Bernard Coe, said: "I do hope this is not Haslemere being short-changed again."

Mr Coe said Waverley had pledged the museum £5,000 each year. "We were naturally very pleased. Alas, the warm feeling did not last very long. The grant the next year was reduced to £4.000 and has been reduced every year since. Now it may be extinguished. My fear is that it will be very hard to get it re-started."

While the interest on the museum's reserves is the largest single source of its income, maintenance of its 18th century building and other costs are a heavy burden.

"We have to tailor our operations to to ensure we do not eat into our reserves and this is likely to mean a reduced service.

"While Waverley has been generous in the past with capital grants, it does not seem to grasp that our problem is in the day-to-day running costs.

"I believe WBC is unaware of just how much we offer the town; we have our prominent educational role, our galleries and collections are outstanding, we are the meeting place for dozens of local groups, our gardens are a delight and we accommodate, free of charge, the Visitor Information Centre," said Mr Coe.

The chairman of Haslemere Hall for the past 25 years, John Sugden, branded the possible grant cut from last year's £3,000 to £2,000 as "appalling. This hall is an asset and the centre of the social life of the town and we do it with an army of volunteers.

"We only have two full-time paid staff," he said, warning Waverley that the finances of the hall were "finely balanced".

He said: "We are not allowed to touch our reserves and the small amount of income they produce just about keeps us afloat."

A spokesman for WBC said that requests of just under a £1 million had been received with just under £600,000 available for grants.