IT has been a terrible year for York's once-thriving social club scene.

Hundreds of sports people will have to find an alternative site for their leisure time when the Civil Service Sports Club, in Boroughbridge Road, closes next year.

The worrying thing is that this is the fifth club in the city to shut in just over a year as developers look to take advantage of rising property and land values.

The Evening Press has conducted a survey of 25 of the city's main social clubs - with a combined membership of 22,300 - to find out if survival is possible in the current climate.

The responses are given in the graphic above.

Overwhelmingly, club leaders accepted that the club scene was in decline, with a severe lack of younger members and smaller profit margins. Many club committees appealed for people to "use them or lose them".

Several of the clubs had been approached by developers interested in buying them out - one steward describing them as "circling sharks". Most have so far declined the offers, but the Promenade Club, in St Benedict Road, has actually teamed up with Guildford Construction in order to survive. Plans are in hand to demolish the building and replace it with 18 flats and a smaller club.

John Winspear, who has been steward at Holgate WMC, in New Lane, for 22 years, said the club managed to survive by hiring out its hall to members as a function room. "If we just relied on membership we would be finished by now," he said.

Updated: 10:38 Thursday, November 21, 2002