The Children's Society is closing the St Gabriel's Project in Wellington Road, Brighton, in March 2004.

As a Friend of St Gabriel's and parent active in this community, I am concerned about the effect of this closure.

There was no consultation with the community nor, it appears, with Brighton and Hove City Council and no planning for the ongoing support of project clients, many of whom are vulnerable young people.

Other residents, church members, priests and professionals have expressed similar concerns.

The St Gabriel's Project has been run as a family centre since 1979.

It has been hailed as a beacon of good practice and used as a model for setting up family centres all over the country.

Now the 15 staff are receiving redundancy notices from the Children's Society and the project is not being replaced.

The sudden and unpredicted closure announcement, the lack of consultation and the very short period of time before it is to be implemented will have a serious impact on many vulnerable project clients.

Services include work with parents under 19, therapeutic work with looked-after children and their carers and extensive family support services.

Staff have expertise in dealing with a large spectrum of needs from behavioural problems to facilitating specific support groups.

Resources are accessible and available to the community.

I am concerned about the future of the Children's Society-owned building which houses the project (an extremely valuable piece of real estate) and other resources within it such as the city's toy library and the soft playroom.

The project is part-funded by the council, which had funding earmarked for the future.

It would be a very sad loss to this city if the Children's Society cannot be persuaded to rethink its closure decision.

-Jane Launchbury, a Friend of St Gabriel's, Brighton