Pensioners banned from playing cards because of health and safety dangers

Pensioners hiring a room to play cards at a Heacham sheltered housing scheme face a £250 insurance bill if they want to continue their sessions, it is claimed.

And Freebridge Community Housing, which runs the village's Neville Court scheme, has halted Friday whist sessions in the community room until further notice.

Eighty-six-year-old Bill Corbett, of Folgate Road, Heacham, said Freebridge was insisting that to continue the two-hour sessions in a room that they have rented for years, the card-players must take out insurance.



And fellow pensioner Tom Coulstock, of Sea Field Gardens, Hunstanton, said they had been quoted £250 a year to meet the £2 million liability insurance cover Freebridge required.

Mr Corbett said: "Perhaps they think that the pensioners, aged 70 to 90, may attack one another with the playing cards?

"The situation is so stupid it's laughable."