RESIDENTS in the Wear Valley are being told this month which 12 community centres are to be closed as part of a good Best Value exercise, which could save the council up to £48,000 a year.

While one of the area's Homeline Community Centres, in Edgar Grove, Bishop Auckland, has already closed this month, a further ten will shut on March 31.

Residents on the Henknowle Estate, in Bishop Auckland, will keep both their centres, in Cornwall Place and Dorset Place, until March 31, 2002, when one will be closed following a further review.

Each of Wear Valley District Council's 32 centres, which include meeting rooms and other communal facilities costs up to £4,000 a year to run, and were seen as either under-used or over-provision.

Residents in Coundon will lose the centres in The Crescent, from which the GOP surgery will continue to operate, and Tees Walk, while those in Monteith Close, West Auckland, and The Square, in St Helen Auckland will go in March.

People living in Crook will lose three of their ten centres, with those in Patterdale Close, Bedburn Close and Millfield Grove all being designated as surplus to requirements.

The final three community centres facing the axe this year are among the nine currently open in Willington. They are those in Norwich Gardens, Bourne Way and Wear Valley View.

Although the Henknowle residents will only lose one of their centres, the laundries in both buildings will close from March next year.

Councillor Brian Myers, chairman of housing at Wear Valley District Council, said there would be no direct job losses as a result of these closures, as they were linked into 22 redundancies being made in the authority's warden service as it tries to slash its housing budget by £200,000.

He said closing the centres was "not something we relish doing", adding: "We took these decisions following meetings at every centre, most of which are not used to anywhere near their full potential."

Letters detailing the closures and other related changes, including charges for some facilities at the remaining centres, are being sent out throughout this month