THE Brighton Women's Centre is

facing closure unless it can find a new home and extra funding by the end of November.

Its current home in St George's Mews is being sold and the group has been served notice to leave.

A three-year funding

programme from the National Lottery is also coming to an end, threatening the range of services

provided.

Michelle Pooley, the centre's co-ordinator, said: "Because we have been in the property for the last ten years we got it at a good rent. Our problem now is not only finding suitable premises but finding them at a price we can afford.

"The centre is a valuable resource for the women of Brighton and Hove. It provides a friendly and safe place women can come into and where they can deal with the difficult issues they may be facing.

"We don't want to close our doors to the public and will keep looking for a solution until the very last minute."

More than 3,000 women a year are helped by the women's centre, which offers help, advice and counselling to those who have suffered from domestic violence or sexual abuse, are out of work or on low incomes.

It houses a pregnancy testing centre, advice line, homeopathy clinic, creche and monthly magazine, as well as self-support groups, welfare rights advice and free legal advice centres.

It also runs the Launch project which aims to help women get back into work.

The Women's Centre received a grant from the National Lottery in November, 1996, of £60,000 over three years. It was to pay for a project working with women on a low income.

A recent application for further funding from the same scheme failed earlier this year.

The centre still receives funding worth £9,000 a year from Brighton and Hove Council but organisers do not want to lose the extra services they have been able to set up with the National Lottery funding.

Dr Liz Williams, one of the volunteers who offers help and advice at the centre, said: "We have kept going by the hard work of our volunteers for 20 years but lottery funding allowed us to expand and extend the range of services we were able to offer.

"The Women's Refuge Project, Rape Crisis and Drugs Project all had their beginnings in the Brighton Women's Centre.

"We're determined the centre can't be allowed to close but, for it to stay open, we need a suitable building and funding."

The centre, which has been open for the last 25 years, had to move once before from a damp basement in Marlborough Place which was not suitable for wheelchair or pushchair access.

In 1988 it won a £15,000 grant from the then Brighton Council to find new premises and moved to Lettice House, in St George's Mews.

The centre needs at least 500 square feet of space which can house a creche, offices, a meeting place with kitchen facilities and two small rooms for private counselling and pregnancy testing.

Anyone who can help is asked to call 01273 600526.

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