An 85-year old woman has told how she will lose "the reason I get up in the morning" if a much-loved community allotment and garden at Jealott’s Hill closes.

The Jealott’s Hill Community Landshare is a six-acre garden offering community, health and well-being to its volunteers – welcoming people with disabilities or disadvantaged backgrounds.

But now its future is at risk after social landlord Silva Homes – which is the leaseholder for the land – decided to pull out.

Pensioner Valerie Nowruz, 85, said she’d struggle to find a replacement if the project had to close. She said: “I have severe arthritis as well as other problems with my health, but I’ve been going up there for nine years. It’s the reason I get up in the morning.

“It keeps me healthy, it keeps my mind fresh. I’m looking for a replacement for that, but there won’t be anything like Jealott’s Hill.”

The landshare was set up some ten years ago, and has helped people with special educational needs and disabilities to learn gardening skills, and instilled feelings of belonging and self-esteem in its volunteers.

Ms Nowruz said: “We’re a very mixed group up there. There are volunteers that turn up wind, rain and shine and we work alongside those people trying to heal themselves through gardening.

“Special schools in Bracknell would bring students to spend the day there, garden and have a picnic. We had arts and crafts for them. We had people with Aspergers, autism and Alzheimer’s.

“We used to encourage them to plant things, to harvest things and take responsibility for what they harvested. I’ve seen changes in people who have got Aspergers and Alzheimer’s. They grow into themselves.”

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The land is owned by agricultural science company Syngenta, but was leased to Silva Homes, Bracknell Town Council and Warfield Parish Council to use for the landshare.

But the two councils both voted to withdraw from the project in March this year. Silva Homes then told volunteers earlier this month that it would do the same.

Silva said the cost of running the site was outstripping the funding it received to keep it going, and it had been unable to fund a new partner to help run the landshare.

Syngenta says it still wants the space to be kept for the landshare. But the lease is set to end on September 29, and the project will be mothballed on September 11 until a new leaseholder can be found.

Project manager Kate Darrall said she wants to thank everyone who helped the project.

She said: “We’ve had humongous support from councillors and the local community and we hope to be able to work with them again. We want to put a message of thanks out to all the partnerships, volunteers and everyone who has supported us over the years.”