The number of Saturday clubs will be almost halved due to cuts by Bracknell Forest Council and parents will have to pay more for the ones that remain, rising from £12 to £20 for each session.

The council is also scrapping the carers’ grants, which enable about 100 families to take a break from their caring responsibilities. In total, it expects to save £106,000 a year from its Aiming High budget – which caters for youngsters with disabilities – from a series of savings.

The planned cuts, approved by the council’s executive last Tuesday, were described as ‘the best of three bad options’.

Holiday clubs and weekends away for youngsters with moderate learning difficulties will remain unaffected.

The two organisations that operate the Saturday clubs for disabled youngsters, under contracts with the council, are Kids and Konnections. Each provider runs 38 clubs a year, which will reduce to 20.

Because of reduced funding, the cost for each child for each session will rise from £12 to £20.

Konnections is based at the Kerith Centre, Church Road, and Kids is based at the Rowans and Sycamore Children’s Centre, Pondmoor Road, Bracknell.

According to a council report that went to the executive, parents and carers were consulted over six months and agreed the rises were the best option, although they expressed their disappointment.

The report said the extra costs “may be difficult for some families but they accepted that the charges were fair and were the least bad option”.

It estimates that about 65 familes with disabled children under 11 will be hit by the cuts to the Saturday clubs, along with 40 familes with children aged under 11.

The funding comes out of the Aiming High budget backed by the government since 2006. But funding has not been ring-fenced since 2011 and each local authority has had the flexibility to make its own financial decisions based on need.

In 2006 parents with disabled children told parliamentary hearings that the lack of short breaks was the biggest single cause of unhappiness.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates that raising a child with a disability costs three times that of a child with no additional needs.

Cllr Gareth Barnard, Bracknell Forest’s executive member for children, young people and learning, told the News: “This is not a good news story but it has been done with consultation with at least 100 families.

“I would like to thank the parents, because it is a sensitive issue which had to be handled sensibly. They all agreed that they would rather pay more for the service than lose it altogether.”