VISITORS to premier tourist attractions could be blocked by angry striking workers this summer.

Staff at Brighton’s Royal Pavilion have been infuriated by a council proposal to transfer management of it to a non-profit private limited company from July.

Unions have described the planned move as privatisation of the city’s cultural heritage.

The GMB union has threatened to ballot for strike action unless the Labour administration pulls the proposal from the agenda of this evening’s meeting of the city council’s powerful policy, resources and growth committee.

But the ultimatum, issued late yesterday afternoon, left Brighton and Hove City Council unmoved.

A council spokesman said: “The council believes... this approach offers the best route to protect the service for the future.

“As is right and proper, councillors will discuss the proposal in public tomorrow and the committee will decide whether it agrees the recommendations.”

The row hinges on a recent and significant change of plans from the council over the future management of the Pavilion, alongside its museums and gardens, and the Brighton Dome and Festival.

Last January the council gave the go-ahead to a long-discussed proposal to move the governance of the Royal Pavilion and Museums from the council to a charitable entity.

This trust would have responsibility for managing the Royal Pavilion and Museums, its gardens, the Brighton Dome and Brighton Festival, and the Music and Arts Service.

It was previously agreed to make the change in two stages but last year it was decided to do it in a single jump.

Two weeks ago, angry staff delivered a petition to councillors with 90 per cent saying they were worried about terms and conditions, and had not been sufficiently consulted – despite the project’s lengthy incubation period.

Tonight’s meeting will debate moving their control, not into a charitable trust maintained by a grant, but directly into the control of the Brighton Dome and Festival Ltd (BDFL) via a contract.

BDFL was established by the council as a registered charity and any surplus it makes must be reinvested for charitable works for public benefit.

Council papers say the council will, next year, agree a basis on which the museum will be managed and that the BDFL board will be required to adopt those policies under the terms of its contract. The papers say a contract is more tax efficient than a grant,

Nonetheless Mark Turner, branch secretary of the GMB, said: “The Dome will only be interested in looking to create a more direct profitability approach to maintaining services at Brighton’s heritage and culture centres for the city and its visitors and to do so that normally means changes to the most valuable resource within any organisation, its staff.

“As always during this type of outsourcing or privatisation of services, staff will almost certainly at some time face the threat of possible job cuts, detrimental changes to pay, terms and conditions by an employer who disgracefully refuses to even sign up to the Brighton or Real Living Wage pay rates.

“The GMB ballot will open if on Thursday the policy, resource and growth committee endorses the officer’s recommendation and should the result support doing so, we will then contact the Electoral Reform Service to carry out a ballot for industrial action, which could see the Royal Pavilion and all of Brighton’s Museums closed some time in early spring and summer as staff look to walk out to protect Brighton’s past for the future.”

Yesterday afternoon council leader Warren Morgan said: “I have proposed to trade unions that we work together in advance of the transfer date of July 1 to establish commitments within the contract with the trust, to ensure that staff expertise lies at the heart of the new organisation and that any concerns they have are given proper consideration.

“I welcome a positive dialogue with staff and trade unions to make this project a success.”

Meanwhile Conservative group leader Councillor Tony Janio said it was “fortuitous” his group had tabled a motion for next week’s full council meeting, which calls for external facilitators to be brought in to “re-set” the council’s relationship with the trade unions.

A peer review in 2017 concluded the existing relationship is “dysfunctional” and recommendation external facilitation.

Around 220,000 people visited the Royal Pavilion last summer – between April and September –and a further 60,000 visited Brighton Museum.

Last year the gardens of the Royal Pavilion were put on Historic England’s at-risk register for the first time.

Council bosses said at the time the planned changes to the management to the Pavilion and its grounds would be an important measure to preserve and protect the gardens for future generations.