Youth clubs will close and youth workers will be made redundant as the council looks to save £2m from the budget.

Cabinet papers going before the council next week show plans to phase out rental payments to 10 youth and community centres worth more than £120,000, meaning many youth clubs will be forced to shut.

A transitional fund of £65,000 in the next financial year will support voluntary groups managing buildings and give them time to find alternative cash.

Timebridge Youth Centre in New Addington is one of the youth clubs that may be forced to shut if it does not find extra funding in the next year. It gets £23,000 in rent from the council.

Hundreds of representatives from the centre wrote to the council and attended council meetings to beg councillors to keep the club open.

The council is looking to replace the youth clubs with five hubs throughout the borough, although it has not been decided where these will be. And 41 members of full and part-time staff will lose their jobs.

Tony Newman, leader of the Labour group, said: “This is an attack on young people and also short sighted.”

Councillor Tim Pollard, cabinet member for children, said the youth service achieved little for the money it cost.