Pavilion crisis: 'We'll take our staircase back'

Businessman Martin Griffin says he has laid off workers from Bexhill and Hastings while he awaits a payment of 31,000 from pavilion contractors Heasman Spicer.

David Martin, a partner in a Hastings based engineering company, says he is owed 23,000 and his business is "really struggling."

They say Heasman Spicer have told them they cannot be paid until the trust has secured extra funding.

The men said they are minded to go back and unscrew the staircases they helped install and 'take back paint'.

Both claim they have been owed the money for more than four months for work carried out between July and September 2005.

They are threatening legal action.

A director of Heasman Spicer chose to withdraw comments he had given to the Observer earlier this week.

The Observer reported last week work had stopped on the two new wings of the pavilion until the trust can rasie funds to make up the "unexpected" costs incurred during the 8 million restoration.

But Mr Griffin, whose Sussex Blast Cleaning firm polished the building's main staircase and windows, is running out of patience.

"We had a meeting with one of the directors (of Heasman Spicer) eight or nine weeks ago and he said we would get our money in four weeks. Well now it has gone two and a half months.

"Someone has got no money somewhere for some reason.

"We can keep trading but it has seriously dented our cash flow. The upsetting thing is that we have had to lay off people. I found good blokes, local to here, and I have had to get rid of them."

He claims to know of "at least six" businesses also waiting to be paid.

The Pavilion Trust says new funding is "imminent."