Mencap told funding will be cut by West Berkshire Council

West Berkshire Council has written to two charities providing respite care for disabled children to tell them their funding will cease in six months.

West Berkshire Mencap and Crossroads Care will both have all their council funding cut.

The funding cuts mean most of Mencap's children's services will be withdrawn and staff will be made redundant by 31 March.

West Berkshire Council did not comment after being approached by the BBC.

All Mencap's school and youth clubs and holiday respite care schemes will stop, with only the charity's Bubble and Sibling clubs remaining.

Crossroads Care said it will no longer be able to provide holiday breaks or day trips for disabled children in West Berkshire.

'Unremittingly stressful'

The charity said the cuts would have a "devastating effect" on the families which use its services.

The BBC understands two other charities, PALS (Partners for Active Leisure Scheme) West Berkshire and Home-Start West Berkshire, have also had their funding cut.

The director of Home-Start West Berkshire, Lynne Doherty, is the West Berkshire councillor for children's services and said she could not comment on the cuts.

Helen Franklin has a daughter aged seven who has autism, ADHD, sensory processing disorder and epilepsy.

She said the Mencap services were a lifeline to her family.

She wrote: "Early last July, things at home were so unremittingly stressful I called the disabled children's team in tears, saying that if more support was not put in place we might have to start looking at a residential placement for my daughter.

"It would only take one family to get to breaking point and ask for their child to be placed at a residential school to wipe out entirely any saving that the council may think it has made through £137,000 worth of cuts to children's services."