Care campaigners have been urged to keep “fighting, complaining and yelling” to stop services for thousands of vulnerable people being decimated by government cutbacks.

And people in Norwich are helping to lead the action by calling on Norfolk County Council to waive demands for £80,000 so they can create a new community centre.

The Friends of the Silver Rooms has now agreed to compile a report explaining why the council should give the building, in Silver Road, north Norwich, to the community without charge.

The group has spent more than two years battling to keep the premises open once it stops being a day centre.

But county council policy states the group has to pay the market value of £80,000 to buy or lease the building.

Only the Conservative cabinet can change this agreement.

Julie Brociek-Coulton, Labour city councillor and one of the committee members, said: “Thousands will be needed to maintain the building which is another good reason it needs to be gifted.”

The group is aiming to provide facilities for people of all ages, including film screening and youth groups.

Supporters of the Silver Rooms also joined in yesterday’s rallying cry insisting the county council rethinks its budget plans.

The authority is expected to approve £44m of savings on Monday, with £3.5m to be cut from day centres.

This proposal will see charges of £15 to £36 implemented per session at day centres, transport arrangements changing and staff numbers decreasing.

And opponents yesterday accused the ruling Conservatives of preparing to “put their hands up like sheep” to back the spending plans, despite hundreds of people across Norfolk voicing their fears about the changes.

This claim was denied by a senior Tory, who insisted the group is backing a well-researched budget.

A protest outside County Hall, in Norwich, is planned ahead of Monday’s vote.

Unison and the Norfolk Coalition of Disabled People (NCODP) met with fellow opponents to the council’s budget at the Curve, in The Forum, Norwich, city centre, yesterday.

James Joyce, Liberal Democrat group leader at County Hall, said people needed to keep making their voices heard as this had so far prevented more drastic cuts being made.

He said: “Keep fighting, keep complaining, keep yelling as you have done for the last two years because if you hadn’t the services would have gone ages ago. Keep fighting and make people understand what prevention is about.”

Hilda Bullen, 83, who uses the Silver Rooms, told yesterday’s meeting: “It’s so important we have contact with other people our age. Perhaps we don’t see anyone over the weekend, I see nobody at all, we go to the Silver Rooms to have this community support. This is my life.”

Fellow Silver Rooms member Barbara Wiltshire added: “I would like to know why the county council is living in the 20th Century and we are living in the 21st Century? We can’t be shifted to the side like that.”

Around 4,500 people use day care services in Norfolk, with 1,700 people visiting those facilities run by the council.

David Harwood, the county council’s cabinet member for adult social services, said the authority had developed plans which protected the most vulnerable and provided more money for prevention services, which aim to spot the early signs of illness.

Mr Harwood added £27m will be put into the care budget in the next three years.

He said: “If we’ve not got the money to do it, we can’t do it. We asked a lot of extremely difficult questions before this process started and one was if people can afford to pay, should they pay? The vast majority of people who responded said yes they should.”

Mr Harwood said plans are also being drawn-up to monitor the quality of care in the private and voluntary sector.

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