A voluntary organisation which believes it will be destroyed by council funding cuts has pleaded its case in front of millions of TV viewers.

Peter Allen from Together in Waddon (TiW) made an impassioned plea to give voluntary groups more money when he appeared on BBC’s The One Show on Monday night.

The community group, which runs clubs, projects and advice surgeries for both young and old people, fears it will have to close by the end of the year after Croydon Council pulled the £60,000 of funding it has received for the past 10 years.

He said: “The big society as an idea is great, but it can’t be done without any money.

“When you think of insurances you have to pay, staffing costs, hire of venues it doesn’t go very far.

“We’re hearing there will be funds available, there will be a big society bank but by the time everything is in place all the groups that have been running the projects will no longer be in existence, because they all have lost their initial funding - they will have to close.”

More than 4m people tune in to the prime-time BBC One magazine show each week, which offers a lighter look at issues affecting the country.

The segment was one of the first items featured in the half-hour programme, as part of a wider piece about the Conservative Government’s flagship Big Society policy.

Plans include setting up a special bank using £400m laying in dormant bank accounts, and encouraging people to get involved in co-operatives and mutual groups to help the voluntary sector flourish.

Croydon Council handed a reprieve to two Croydon groups following a backlash over the spending cuts from the borough’s voluntary organisations.

But 38 of the 47 groups previously funded through the council’s corporate budget will still lose out on funding, with many facing closure.

The authority initially cut funding by 60 per cent to give just six organisations £625,000 over the next four years.

But it changed its mind following pressure from voluntary groups, adding a seventh organisation to the list and taking its spending to £672,500.

Coun Vidhi Mohan, cabinet member for communities, said the council had listened to voluntary groups’ complaints and worked hard to improve the funding on offer.