A West Sussex village looks likely to lose its community hall unless a new caretaker can be found.

Up to 50 youngsters use the building in Upper Beeding for their playgroup every day, as do community organisations.

However, the High Street hall, paid for and owned by the village, is to shut after more than 60 years because there is no one to look after it.

Just one person has applied for the part-time job since it was advertised last year and they turned the post down.

The Beeding and Bramber Pre-school Playgroup, which has used the hall for 40 years, would be among the groups struggling to find a new home.

Group Leader Gaynor Lewis said: "This is a tiny village and there aren't many other buildings that could accommodate us.

"It has got a lovely garden and it's nice inside. We also employ staff from the village and as well as people's jobs, the children would have nowhere to go."

The hall, which was built around 1934 with money painstakingly raised over years by villagers, serves as a base and theatre for the Adur Players, who are performing Babes in the Wood there later this month.

It also hosts weddings, a regular over-60s club, karate sessions and, during election time, political hustings.

Lorna Crutchlow, chairman of the village hall committee, described the situation as extremely desperate.

She said: "I have got two old stalwarts who are helping out at the moment but they are pensioners and we can't exist on good will forever.

"It's only 20 hours a month and we have put the wage up to try and attract the right person."

Mrs Crutchlow, 51, from Amberley Road, Storrington, took over as committee chairman in June last year.

She said: "I can chair four meetings a year standing on my head but the caretaker resigned in October and we have been struggling ever since."

Mrs Crutchlow sees the hall as the heart of the village community, albeit a waning one.

She said: "It's a fact of village life these days that there is a core of people who do these sort of things and other people who let them.

"They moan about it when it all goes wrong but nobody helps."

Anyone interested in the job should contact Mrs Crutchlow on 01903 741404.