IT is a vital charity offering support to vulnerable women in their hour of need.

Since 1985, Southampton Rape Crisis (SRC) has helped thousands of people across the city.

But that help will now have to be scaled back as the charity faces cuts to its funding from the city council.

The authority recently announced how much organisations across the city would get from its grant funding hand-outs.

But with the cash-strapped council needing to make savings of £16m for 2013/14, many groups have seen their funds cut for the next financial year.

SRC has seen its money cut by £9,986 to £82,666, and organisers say its services will have to be reduced as a result.

Tara Doel, the charity’s resources manager, said: “There will obviously need to be reduced levels of service provision due to the cuts.

“This is likely to mean both a reduction in numbers of individuals seen and the number of sessions we can provide.

“As an organisation, our heart is with the client base we provide support to and therefore we are looking at new ways of working, such as more group work or time-limited and focused counselling sessions to try to minimise the reduction in numbers of clients we would be unable to support.”

Saying assessments were being carried out to see just how badly affected the charity will be, she added: “We are relieved that the city council has continued to fund the majority of our much-needed work although, as the funding is on a reduced basis, this will obviously have an impact on our capacity and the number of people needing a service that we will be unable to support.”

Among the services SRC offer are support to victims of rape and abuse and their families, therapy and counselling, therapeutic groups for both adults and youngsters, and preventative work in schools, youth groups and colleges.