Elderly people living near Oswestry fear they will have to fork out for gardeners to tend their lawns after a charity revealed it was having to cut back its gardening scheme.

The Age Concern charity in Oswestry is having to trim back its services because of limited resources and financial constraints.

Some elderly residents have been told they will no longer be able to have their gardens tended.

Age Concern Shropshire said today that it was having to prioritise cases.

The service by the charity runs from April to October and sees a gardener attend to front gardens monthly to do weeding and trim plants for a small fee.

Thomas Sadler, 74, from Hengoed, said he received the service last year but it been refused to him this year.

He said: “I can’t do my gardening like I used to and some people are in wheelchairs. I have a gardener to do my back garden which costs me a lot of money, but Age Concern do my front.”

He added that at St Martins Age Concern, about five or six members were affected by the cutbacks.

“It’s not me so much it’s the other people who are worse off than me but I am still upset about it. People take pride in their gardens and it upsets them,” he said.

“There should be more funding for Age Concern.”

Richard Shearing, manager of the Help at Home Scheme, said due to limited resources the charity was having to prioritise, but he said he could not comment on individual cases.

“We are still doing gardening work across the whole of the county,” he said.

“We have a limited number of gardeners . . . There will be cases where we can’t help and we regret that, but we have limited resources.”