Brown urged to stop youth centre closing

Gordon Brown is being called on to save a scheme that helps young people on one of London's most deprived estates.

The Thessaly Community Project, based at the Yvonne Carr Centre in Battersea, was opened by Mr Brown in 2003. It provided hundreds of families with childcare, job training and a youth club. Youth community programmes have been at the centre of the Government's drive to cut teenage crime.

But the project has gone into voluntary liquidation with debts thought to be about £100,000. Some 23 staff say they have not been paid since Christmas. They claim they were given 30 minutes' notice to leave the building at the end of January.

Last night campaigners handed a petition of more than 5,000 signatures to Downing Street calling on the Prime Minister to investigate.

The Yvonne Carr Centre is on the Patmore Estate, an area of high unemployment. It is named after a community campaigner who was the driving force behind it. Yvonne Carr died two weeks before the opening, aged 58.

Jimmy Dodd, chairman of the project's board of trustees, said: "Everyone has been devastated by this mess because the centre was booming."

But Thessaly appeared to be struggling as early as 2005 when its treasurer wrote in a Charity Commission report that it was a "hand to mouth" operation.

It had been funded by organisations including Wandsworth and Lambeth councils and Help a London Child. The London Development Agency provided it with £212,500 but ceased funding in 2005.

In late 2007, the Careers Development Group, a Wimbledon-based firm, was put in charge of day-to-day management of the centre. Mr Dodd claimed CDG had provided poor advice. CDG chief executive Roy O'Shaughnessy said it put £80,000 of its own money into the centre.

Thessaly treasurer the Rev Geoff Vevers said: "I was always grateful to CDG. They tried their hardest for over a year."

Patrons of the project include Lord Stevens, former Met Commissioner, and the Bishop of Southwark.

Wandsworth council said it hoped to reopen the building in conjunction with another community centre next door.

Last year, the Government's £100 million Youth Crime Action Plan said more youth centres should be built and opened at weekends. Ministers said educating teenagers through the centres was key to cutting re-offending rates.