Nearly 50 staff and patients have been told a clinic for addicts in north Norfolk will close within days after attempts to save it failed.The Diana Princess of Wales centre in Mundesley went into administration last year when its parent company, Adapt, hit financial problems.

Nearly 50 staff and patients have been told a clinic for addicts in north Norfolk will close within days after attempts to save it failed.

The Diana Princess of Wales centre

in Mundesley went into administration last year when parent company Adapt hit financial problems.

Administrators have been searching for a buyer to take on the clinic, which treats people with alcohol and drug addictions, since last July.

It was thought a buyer had been found, but in the past few days talks broke down, and on Monday 30 staff and 18 patients were told the centre would close in 10 days.

Jacqui Grice, who has been receiving treatment at the clinic since February, said the news came as a huge shock for everyone. She said: "Some of the staff were made redundant there and then - they were leaving in tears."

Administrators Grant Thornton said it had spent months trying to find a buyer for the centre. Spokesman Ian Carr said: "We have had various detailed discussions with a potential purchaser but we were not making the right headway. There is no option for us other than to close the centre. The business has been losing money for some months."

Mr Carr said the administrators were trying to help patients find alternative centres for their treatment.

But 51-year-old Ms Grice, who has battled with addictions to alcohol and a number of drugs since her teens, said she had just five weeks of treatment left and relocating would cause too much disruption.

The mother-of-three, from the Isle of Wight, said she had sought treatment before but had never been able to stick with it. She said: "There's something special about this place."

North Norfolk MP Norman Lamb said: "We don't have enough access to alcohol treatment in this country. Losing a facility like this is disturbing."

Mundesley county councillor Graham Jones said he was "deeply disappointed" by the decision to close the clinic, which treats patients from across the country, and would be writing to the government to ask it to intervene with funding.

He said: "It seems to be a tragedy that we have staff who are unable to do their jobs. We have premises and people with desperate need for it."

Mr Carr said he thought it was "highly unlikely" that a buyer would be found in time to save the centre.

While the immediate concern is relocating the patients, the administrators will then seek to sell the property in the best interests of creditors.

The Diana Princess of Wales centre was opened in 1997 at a cost of �2m in Mundesley's former tuberculosis hospital.