One of the oldest working men’s clubs in the country is facing its last New Year’s Eve before it is demolished to make way for housing.

Members at the 148-year-old South Acton working men’s club, on the council estate that provided the backdrop for Only Fools and Horses, have described the move as “a disaster, cutting the heart out of South Acton”.

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The cosy two-storey community hub, which features a pool table, dartboard and well-stocked bar, will be replaced by dozens of flats in the latest stage of an £800m regeneration turning the South Acton council estate into Acton Gardens.

Its regular users include elderly people, a Ukrainian dance group, members of the local Somali community and a youth club that borrowed the function hall for a rap music showcase.

The premises will not be replaced as part of the redevelopment and the estate will now have no pubs, having once been host to five.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The two-storey community hub has a pool table, dartboard and well-stocked bar, and runs weekly bingo. Photograph: Alecsandra Raluca Dragoi/The Guardian

“We have got to be out on February 28th,” said Dave Mitchum, the club’s treasurer. “There are no words to explain it. The club has always been the central location and when that’s gone, the community is gone. People used to come from all angles. Families grow up, their kids come in, they get married and their kids come in. With the regeneration moving people out that has come to a standstill now.”

The club was established in 1871 by a vicar to support workers in the local laundry industry and is one of the oldest remaining working men’s clubs in the UK. It may only be predated by the Ridge Hill club in Stalybridge, Cheshire, which was established in 1861 and has itself been fighting for survival this year because of a mountain of debt.

The working men’s club movement peaked in 1974 when about 4,000 venues were members of the Club and Institute Union. Since then about 2,500 have closed, with many hit by the smoking ban. Despite their name, the clubs are open to anyone to become a member, but unlike pubs they are not open to the general public without membership. South Acton has active darts and pool teams, runs weekly bingo and has a hall that is well used for wedding receptions, christenings and wakes.

Phil Luke, 70, a painter and decorator who has been going to the club for 14 years and volunteers behind the bar, said: “It’s going to be very sad. In that area it’s the only place for people to go. We have quite a few old people who come in for the bingo and there’s going to be nowhere for them.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Checking the numbers on bingo night. Photograph: Alecsandra Raluca Dragoi/The Guardian

He said it was also a calm place for younger people to go compared with the pubs on the high street. South Acton has problems with street crime and gang culture and the club has provided a safe haven for some.

“We get youngsters in from 18 onwards and they come for a game of pool or darts,” he said. “It’s a place they can come where they know there’s no aggravation, no trouble.”

Mitchum, a retired builders’ merchant who has lived on the estate for 40 years, lamented the direction the regeneration was taking and questioned why the social capital bound up in the club was being discarded rather than built upon.

“We are not getting that friendly community as we had,” he said. “That is the biggest bugbear. We’ve got a [new] community centre over there, but it does nothing to be quite truthful.”

He said Ealing council and the developers had offered an alternative room in the new “community hub”, but on the condition it would have to close if the council needed it for a function. They were told there would only be folding chairs, not the comfortable padded seats inside the current club, and no fruit machines, no pool table and almost certainly no draught beer.

The members felt none of that added up to a proper club so the offers have been rejected. Now the regulars have started casting around for an alternative pub in which to meet, but it will not be the same.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dave Mitchum, the club’s treasurer, displays the original 1871 members’ register. Photograph: Robert Booth/The Guardian

“We are are going to be the last ones,” said Mitchum, looking at a leather-bound ledger from 1871 listing the names of the first members in copperplate script – Hobbes, McIntyre, Barnham, Townsend. “It is going to be a dreadful day on February 28th. I don’t know how we are going to cope. It’s going to be a sad day for Acton.”

A spokesperson for Ealing council said: “Throughout the planning of the new building the council and Acton Gardens LLP have consulted the club on the community hub’s design. We have worked closely with the club to try to help in several ways, including resolving its immediate financial difficulties by previously buying out the freehold of its premises, consulting it on the design of the new community hub and helping it to secure alternative premises. We continue to work with the club to seek a mutually agreeable way forward and no options have been closed off to the club to date.”