LANCASTER women's refuge will remain open until late May after a last minute funding package was agreed.

An 11th hour deal agreed to restructure funding from the Tudor Trust, which was paying for a member of staff until October.

At an extraordinary general meeting on Tuesday night, members of the management committee of Lancaster and District Women's Aid explained the reasons behind the decision to close.

The organisation's chairman, Andie Brown, explained that the contract between women's aid and the New Leaf housing association, owners of the refuge building, allowed them to have no more than 15 per cent 'voids' (empty rooms).

The level of voids had been running at 38 per cent. She added: "As a result of having high voids, our housing benefit decreased. That is a considerable part of of our funding."

Ms Brown said she and her colleagues had tried to recruit new members to the committee, with little success, but still hoped to harness support for the new refuge.

Responding to a question about the organisation's lack of transparency, Ms Brown said: "With the benefit of hindsight, it would be better if we had this meeting some time ago.

"We were trying to deal with day to day issues. It is not possible to do all things at all times."

Looking to the future, Ms Brown said she and her committee remain committed to the idea of a refuge, and plan to explore other options in a bid to find a more suitable building.

Louise Cumberland, social housing manager for New Leaf Housing, said the organisation had no plans at present for the refuge building, but were keen to continue to use it for social housing.

Shona Bettany, one of the women campaigning against the refuge's closure, pointed out to the meeting that some refuges were able to survive on higher voids. She added that some councils spend up to £180 on each woman's housing benefit, compared to just £110 spent by Lancaster City Council. She also questioned why every time the city council had referred a woman to the refuge, they were told that it was full. The management committee responded by saying that the situation in the centre could change very quickly, but added that they would have to check in detail the dates of every referral made by the city council to be absolutely certain.