A national charity is set to demand the return of £5,000 after the future of a nursing home was put under threat.

Members of the support group Friends of Threelands Grange have been told they must return the cash to MIND if their project to build a garden in the home grounds is not finished.

Volunteers were told to down tools by Kirklees Council in January - halfway through building work at Threelands Grange, off Bradford Road, in Birkenshaw.

Then staff and residents were told this month the home could be closed by the Council in summer as it would not meet new Government building regulations.

Friends of Threelands Grange chairman Margaret Sheard said: "We're really upset. Our members and the residents were looking forward to seeing the garden finished for summer.

"We've already spent more than £2,000 on materials and paying the landscape gardener for work he's done, so I don't know how we'll give the money back. A lot of work had been put into designing a garden which the residents would enjoy."

The plan by Kirklees Council to close Threelands Grange and another home in Huddersfield was leaked last week.

The authority wants to direct more cash into caring for the elderly in their own homes and away from traditional residential care.

Officers claim its 17 homes, which all have shared toilet facilities, will be unable to meet new Government building standards. But Mrs Sheard said she would not let Threelands Grange - which her group has supported for two years - close without a fight.

She said: "Threelands is a really loving, caring, happy home. The staff make sure the place is spotless.

"If Kirklees says it doesn't come up to standard then it's shame on them for not keeping it up to standard."

The garden would have boasted a water feature, a mill stone, pergola, paths and raised flower beds which wheelchair-bound patients could cultivate.

A spokesman for MIND, which supports victims of mental illness, said: "The money was given for a garden and if it can't be completed we would require it back."

Kirklees Council spokesman David Bagley, said: "We have written to the Friends of Threelands Grange explaining the home's future will be discussed with them, and a decision will only be made after public consultation."

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