A  group of elderly dancers have performed their last turn at a parish hall they have used for 24 years after they were banned for leaving the venue covered in chalky footprints.

Tea dance members are in a spin after they were thrown out of Lancing Parish Hall after almost a quarter of a century's use for leaving the venue in a mess.

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Lancing Parish Council officials say the group have been warned regularly over the past year over the use of chalk and said the situation had now become “intolerable”.

The issue is deemed so serious that the council sent off parts of the floor to be analysed to find out what was making the floor slippery.

The group of up to 40 elderly dancers aged 60 and above attend the weekly tea dances every Friday between 2pm and 4.30pm and claim to be one of the oldest dance groups in West Sussex.

However, that has now come to an abrupt end after the parish council announced last week that they would not be welcome back.

Tea dance member Eddie Phillips, 80 from Brighton Road in Lancing, said members enjoyed the exercise and the fun of meeting up.

He added: “Some people on rare occasions might put some chalk or talcum powder on their shoes so that you don't slip.

“Sometimes the floor is really sticky depending on who has been in before and if it's dirty you can't do a spot turn on the floor.

“It's a dancefloor, how can you let out a dance floor when it's not danceable?”

Shirley Bosley from Shoreham, has been organising the dance for more than 20 years.

She said: “Some of our members have been coming every year and now we have nowhere else to go.”

Lancing parish council clerk Colin Hunt said they had received a number complaints about people slipping over following the group's tea dances.

He said the group were found to have been using a chalk-like substance on their shoes which had caused a health and safety issue and were asked repeatedly to stop using the substance.

He added: “We have had a new hall manager in and he has taken this very, very seriously and quite rightly so.

“We have asked repeatedly that they don't use chalk but they didn't take a blind spot of notice.

“We cannot have our patrons being put at risk because somebody wants to put chalk on their shoes to dance so it's unfortunate we have come to this impasse.”