Unemployed centre facing closure as activists argue over £500,000

A centre for unemployed workers is facing closure after a vitriolic internal dispute about its dilapidated premises and a £500,000 fund that is to be spent on a new building.

One faction at Brighton and Hove TUC Unemployed Workers Centre in Hollingdean has asked the Charities Commission to launch an investigation into the "possible misappropriation" of funds and into the "dereliction of duties" by former trustees, including Tony Greenstein, who helped found the centre in the 1980s, under the slogan "Fighting poverty amidst plenty".

Since 1999, the centre has been based in a run of shops in Crestway, form where it has supported families on low wages, disabled people, and the unemployed by offering a social space, free food and clothing, a free telephone line, free events for children, and a "combative and professional" welfare advice service, including employment advice.

Mr Greenstein, 60, an occasional contributor to Brighton and Hove Independent, resigned from the centre in August. His fellow trustees, all trade unionists, also resigned at the same time.

Opposing them is Giuseppina Salamone, a welfare rights worker at the centre, who has written to 20 or more trade union branches listing her concerns in a seven-page letter, a copy of which has been obtained by Brighton and Hove Independent.

In it, Ms Salamone blames Mr Greenstein for spending "little or no money" on essential maintenance of the leasehold premises - while having control, with other trustees, of a building fund that totalled £507,736.75 in November last year.

The dispute is complicated by the terms of a "repair-all" lease - agreed with London-based private landlords - which Ms Salamone says means the centre could be liable for more than £50,000 of building work.

As a result, she has refused an offer from Mr Greenstein that she and her colleagues should take over the lease; instead, she has argued any building work should be paid for out of the building fund - and that she and her colleagues should be compensated to the tune of £20,000-plus for having to put up with premises where concrete and plaster is falling from the ceiling and where there are loose carpets and messy electrical cables.

Mr Greenstein - who claims to have helped raise up to £3 million for the centre, including National Lottery grants, donations, and a substantial share in successful tribunal claims - insists the £500,000 fund for a new building remains intact and has documentary evidence to show it is held securely in bonds and trusts.

Brighton and Hove Trades Council is expected to discuss the deepening rift next month, with a view to using the £500,000 building fund to develop ambitious plans for a new centre for the whole of the labour and trade union movement in the city.