A TOP gymnastics club, whose membership includes seven of the 14 members of the Great Britain junior tumbling team which competed in the world championships earlier this year, has been given notice to quit its premises.

Warrington Gymnastics Club will become homeless at the end of the year unless they can find a new HQ.

So far, a search by Eric Bibby and his daughter, Sandi Gore has proved fruitless, unless the club moves out of Warrington.

Ms Gore said: "Although we've been given six months notice, the letter reached us only this week because it was sent to my former home. It has hit us like a ton of bricks.

"We're reluctant to move out of Warrington because we have such close ties with the town. But if we can't find somewhere we could be left with 300 kids who have no club."

The Bewsey Road club has twice been voted Warrington's Sports Club of the Year.

Last month, two of its members, Abbie Quarmby, 10, ranked eighth in the world, and Zoe Allen, nine, were voted winner and runner-up of Warrington Sports Forum's Junior Sports Personality of the Year contest.

Ms Gore, 35 , who clinched a double for the club by winning the Coach of the Year award, said: "The kids love the club. It's not only their gymnastics training centre, it's their social life too. For many it's their life, as everything else revolves around their gymnastics."

An empty warehouse is available near their current gymnasium> The rent would be £20,000-a-year but the club can only afford £7,000.

Plans for a new purposebuilt gym have been drawn up but depend on a successful Lottery grant application which has not been put together yet.

The sport's governing body fears that the loss of premises could affect the seven members of the national tumbling team who competed in Denmark this year and one option is that they could be moved to other clubs out of town.

They could be asked to move to the national high performance centre at Wakefield to train there. But it is an 80-minute drive and they would be representing Wakefield, not Warrington.

Ms Gore said: "I've been told they're not to lose training time because of the premises issue.

"We desperately need to find a new home in Warrington."