Residents from deprived communities promised their lives would change with a Government pot of £47.2 million are disillusioned with the organisation leading the regeneration.

Neighbours living on the estates of east Brighton who thought their fortunes would be turned around by eb4U told a panel examining the organisation's work they supported it at the start but soon became disheartened.

Brighton and Hove City Council set up a scrutiny panel to take evidence to examine the work of eb4U, which is half way through a ten-year programme to regenerate east Brighton.

At the third public meeting of the panel, held at Moulsecoomb Hall, Lewes Road, Moulsecoomb, Brighton, several residents said people had lost interest in the scheme for a number of reasons.

Whitehawk resident Miriam Binder told the hearing chaired by Councillor Jan Young she was heavily involved as a volunteer from the start.

She said: "I started stuffing envelopes and soon I was practically full-time in the community development office at the Wellesbourne Centre."

Miss Binder also volunteered for eb4U's neighbourhood management project but eventually dropped out and was "retired".

She told the two-hour hearing: "Through sheer and utter frustration and the constant feeling of banging your head against a brick wall, I walked away from eb4U."

Miss Binder said one of the main problems with the programme was the language used by management which led to poor interaction between residents and professionals.

Residents on boards and steering groups were expected to wade through piles of paperwork, trying to follow difficult-to-understand language.

Miss Binder said: "The middle to top management within the project or programme has to be aware of the language used by the two groups. I pointed this out but this has been used again and again to manipulate residents.

"They went ahead and did what they wanted and when the residents came back and said that's not what we wanted to do, they would say this is what they thought you wanted."

Carmel Stevenson, a former steering group member, who has lived in east Brighton for 20 years, highlighted the number of projects which closed when their funding ended at the end of March.

Questions were also raised about eb4U spending money on industrial projects such as Westergate House business centre and the Fairway Trading Estate in Moulsecoomb.

eb4U has said its investment in capital projects is to give it an income so it can be sustainable after the pot of cash has run out.

Friday May 6 2005