CONCERNED councillors have agreed to not make any fresh appointment to The Beacon board as bosses try to get the troubled £10m centre back on track.

We can reveal that the local authority has decided NOT to nominate a new director to the Arts Guild — which runs the venue — for the time being.

The council had been expected to approve a successor to Labour man Martin Brennan who recently announced his resignation from the guild.

Instead, elected members decided that the board — which has lost two chairmen in a matter of months, is at the centre of an alleged cash crisis and has been hit by in-fighting — should be left to deal with its current ‘issues’.

Council leader Stephen McCabe said: “We are all aware of some issues with the board which have been in the public domain.

“The guild is going through a process of change and I think we should allow the board to work through the changes and not make an appointment at this time.” The guild board is understood to be involved in a wrangle over construction costs for the Beacon.

Builders Graham Construction say they are owed £2m because of alleged changes made to building specifications while work was underway, but the Beacon bosses say it’s only £1 million.

The Telegraph told in February that the management of the centre said that negotiations were continuing in a bid to resolve the matter.

But the Beacon was then hit by fresh controversy over the way it is run, with some amateur dramatic groups claiming they were being pushed away by ‘big headed management’.

It has also been alleged that the Beacon’s bistro is not making enough cash and that a year’s budget for the facility was spent in just four months.

The Beacon has declined to ‘conduct business activities through the press’, saying that they are ‘private and confidential’.

At a meeting to discuss council representation on the board, Councillor McCabe proposed that the matter of filling the vacancy created by Councillor Brennan be brought back at a future meeting.

The council continues to be represented on the arts guild board by Conservative councillor David Wilson.