Potters Bar’s Royal British Legion branch is appealing for new members to help ensure its survival.

Based in the former village hall in Cotton Road, which is due to be redeveloped, membership dropped “dramatically” since the actual club ended three years ago, according to its chairman Joan Wright.

Mrs Wright, 73, of Chase Avenue, Potters Bar, said: “We are desperate because we need people to join and help us. At the moment there are not many members. We had about 150, but people assumed the branch had gone too, and membership went down dramatically.

“The more people we have got, the more help we can give. The work we do is very important, like the poppy appeal. This year we have raised £23,000 so far for it. It’s very valuable.”

Mrs Wright, who has two daughters and five grandchildren, has been a member for 35 years, and is confident the branch will survive.

She said: “I do not think it will ever close. We have been in Potters Bar since 1925, so we are not easily got rid of. We are a friendly bunch, and we work hard doing something worthwhile. There’s only a few of us to do it though, and we need young people too.”

The branch holds regular quiz nights, along with bingo sessions and other charity events, and more than 200 people attended its Remembrance Day service last November.

Under the redevelopment plans put to Hertsmere council, the current building will be demolished and replaced with four flats and a new community hall.

Proceeds from the sale of the flats will go to the branch, which owns the building.

Mrs Wright said she will be sad to see it demolished, as her wedding reception was held there in 1962.

She added: “We are very fond of our building. It will be sad but we have not got the means, and it needs so much work on it. It was built in the last 19th century and things do go wrong.

“We are going to keep the same façade outside though, and at  least we will be in the same place we have always been.”