A CHARITY chief and a council have clashed over the use of clothing bins.

Traid, which collects used clothes and sells them in charity shops, claimed it has lost £160,000 every year since Brighton and Hove City Council transferred its charity bins to a commercial company in 2016.

But the council said the money from the bins was better spent on community groups rather than national charities.

Traid chief executive Maria Chenoweth said the decision to give control of the bins to recycling company Soex had deprived them of 91 tonnes of clothes and shoes.

She said: “Every time a council removes charity textile banks in favour of a commercial company it makes it harder to stock our charity shops.

“We are not asking councils to stop making commercial decisions.

“We are asking them to ensure that charities are not the victim of commercial decisions.”

A study by the charity claimed 88 per cent of people preferred to use textile banks run by charities.

The YouGov poll also claimed 67 per cent of residents were unaware textile banks can be run by commercial companies.

And two thirds of respondents said they would stop donating entirely if their local textile bank was run by a commercial company.

Charity chief Ms Chenoweth added: “By listening to residents and improving transparency about who profits from clothes donations, councils can continue to support charities and the huge socio-environmental contributions they make.”

But a spokesman for Brighton and Hove City Council said handing over the bins to a commercial company meant it could support community groups.

“As with many other councils, we removed the textile banks run by national charities and replaced them with a city council run service,” he said.

“We did this to ensure money received from the collection and distribution of textiles benefited small community projects rather than go into a national charity pot of money.”

The spokesman said the council received no money under the previous arrangement with Traid.

But in the past three years it has spent more than £80,000 on community groups thanks to money from Soex.

“Some of those groups include Rottingdean in Bloom, the Low Carbon Trust, and the Chattri Memorial Group,” the spokesman added.

“It is highly unlikely any of these organisations would have benefited from funding from a national charity.

“Local organisations are delighted with the funding they receive.

“But if people do want to give to specific charities there are many charity shops throughout the city where textiles can be taken.”

Robin Osterley, chief executive of the Charity Retail Association, said the charity shops raise almost £300 million every year for a variety of “good causes”.

He said: “The charity retail sector also makes a huge contribution to the environment.

“In 2018, 327,000 tonnes of textiles were diverted from landfill and into re-use and recycling.”

CORRECTION: Earlier we reported Traid had lost £190,000 per year of charitable income but this figure has been corrected by Traid to £160,000.