A mental health charity fears its users will have nowhere to go if £25,000 of funding will be cut.

Harrow Council haa today announced their draft budget for 2017-2018, and it includes plans to spend more than £9m in "essential services" for the borough, including new and improved street lights, more money on services to helping the people of Harrow.

Leader of Harrow Council, Sachin Shah also announced £17m of budget cutbacks.

Funding cuts to the mental health charity Mind in Harrow, would mean the service losing £25,843 from April 2017.

The project trains and supports 20 mental health service user representatives to help in a wide range of adult social care engagement activities.

These users would not be able to continue working if the cuts are approved.

Mind in Harrow’s mental health user involvement project conducted an impact of closure survey in October this year.

It revealed that 94 per cent of people would be likely or very likely to be less aware of council consultations about service changed which affect them

User Involvement Coordinator Raksha Pandya at Mind in Harrow said: "The cuts are affecting the hole of the voluntary sector, and one of our users has said it will be a “disaster for democratic representation in Harrow”.

"Mental health is a huge issue that some people say does not receive the same attention as physical issues.

"These cuts mean so many people with mental health issues will not receive the support they need in Harrow.

"People will have nowhere to go, there is no other help of offer in the borough."

Leader of the Conservative party, Cllr Susan Hall says it s a "disgrace" that the council will not help vulnerable people.

Cllr Hall said: "They are putting millions into the regeneration scheme and cannot fund the charities that help people who really need it.

"It is a disgrace and I will fight with the voluntary sectors against the council cuts."

The Council’s new expenditure for next year include:

• £3,500,000 for statutory services for vulnerable people including protecting children and caring for the elderly

• £1,500,000 to replace old street lights across the borough with LED lights

• Extra cash to fight fly-tipping, including extra crews on duty, new ways to report fly-tipping, and more prosecutions. This means the increase since 2015 is near £1m

• There will be £300,000 for new and more litter bins

• More than £100,000 to improve customer service

Leader Cllr Sachin Shah said: “It is important we look after children and elderly people in Harrow.

“We started with what we must do legally and we needed to look at ways to save money.

“To the voluntary sectors we have had to make cuts to, I would say I am sorry, I understand that people will be upset. Difficult decisions had to be made, and this was one of them.

“Our first priority is looking after people in Harrow. We thought what more could we do for charities in Harrow, and we came up with the idea of crowdfunding, where a project can raise amounts of money from online or in the community."

Earlier this year, the council introduced an innovative "one of its kind" social care managing system to help people in Harrow, when it teamed up with Technology giant IBM.

This programme is one of many where the council is fighting to be self-sufficient.