'Heartbroken' owner of Sussex horse rescue centre given six months to find new home

• Report by ITV Meridian's Derek Johnson

A horse rescue centre in Sussex says it's desperate to find a new home and is worried about the fate of its animals if they can't.

Charity Kilmarnock Horse Rescue in Crawley, has been given six months to find somewhere else to keep its horses, ponies and donkeys because the site it's on is being sold.

Owner Carol Jackson explained that the news could not have happened at a worse time for the charity: "That will push us into the winter months which is our main worry because these animals are elderly and they need to be in a warm stable environment over the winter months.

"So we really need to find somewhere where we can be in by the end of October which is very very unlikely."

The rescue has been located at the current site in Crawley, just a stones throw away from Gatwick Airport, for three years.

Carol launched the charity more than twenty years ago with the aim of caring for abandoned and mistreated horses and donkeys, as well as offering trips to children with disabilities.

To date they have re-homed hundreds of animals.

One of the many horses that Carol has saved is Poppy who is a Chestnut mare that has been overbred and was due to be put down before being taken in by the Carol.

Carol is concerned about what will happen if they cannot find another suitable home for the rescue. She said they could be forced to close.

"I would be heartbroken because a lot of these animals I have actually nursed", she said.

"I've slept in stables in the middle of winter under a quilt just to make sure that we've got the drips in right and the fluids going in to them, and they are not going off in any way.

"We have to nurse them back to health, so it is very much a passion and very close to my heart."

• Carol Jackson, Chairman and Founder of the Kilmarnock Horse Rescue in Crawley

Samantha Dayman is a volunteer at the rescue and she hopes that, with the help of the public, they will find a new home.

"It is a really nice place to be and it is such a shame that we have to move and try and find somewhere else.

"We are hoping that the public out there will see this and we will be able to get somewhere just as nice as this."