TRUSTEES of Warden Bay village hall are challenging a ruling by the parish council that they are not entitled to run the building. The parish council agreed at its meeting earlier this month that the current trustees could not be officially recognised because they had not signed the minutes at their last annual general meeting.

Pat Sandle, the parish council's joint vice-chairman, is calling an extraordinary parish council meeting on Friday to appoint a new group of trustees to run the hall in Warden Bay Road and to find a new parish council chairman after Pam Henry resigned.

Mrs Sandle said: "They have never really been trustees because they are required by law to sign the minutes of the annual meting and they have not been doing this."

The hall is owned by Swale council, leased to the parish council and run by trustees on the management committee as a charity. Mrs Sandle, who insisted the parish had acted lawfully, added: "The parish council takes the view that the management committee did not perform properly and, as parish council is the custodial trustee, it will run the village hall in the meantime."

But the current trustees, three of whom are also parish councillors, met in the village hall last Thursday evening and decided to challenge the parish council's decision.

Mrs Henry, one of the hall's trustees, said she had been advised by the Charity Commissioners that the parish council could not take over the hall and that the trustees were acting properly. The trustees also plan to meet a commissioner for advice and have contacted Swale council's legal department and the Kent Rural Community Council to find out where they stand.

Hall committee chairman Brian Strange resigned at the start of last Thursday's meeting and was succeeded by Mrs Henry, who is still a parish councillor. The controversy began two weeks ago when trustees suspended two youth clubs which meet at the hall on Mondays and Wednesdays because some members had allegedly vandalised the building. But at the subsequent parish council meeting, it was decided that the Wednesday sessions for older teenagers should continue.

After a heated debate, parish council chairman Mrs Henry resigned.