A FORMER manager at the East Lancashire Railway is taking the volunteer-run company to an industrial tribunal.

Brian Lythgoe, of Gorse Grove, Flax Moss, Helmshore, was the commercial development manager and finance director until last summer.

He had worked for the company for six years and received a redundancy settlement understood to be several thousand pounds.

Mr Lythgoe, former financial director at Hyndburn Borough Council, declined to comment when contacted by the Lancashire Evening Telegraph saying he didn't want any publicity about the matter.

His solicitor Roger Medlock, of Woodcock and Sons, Haslingden, said "I cannot possibly comment on this matter."

Trevor Jones, chairman of the East Lancashire Light Railway Company, said: "I can confirm that we have been approached by solicitors to say that Mr Lythgoe is taking us to an industrial tribunal for unfair dismissal.

"The cost of the action ultimately will come from the volunteer-run railway. "He was made redundant as commercial and development manager and we are disappointed that he is now taking action against us as we run the railway at our own cost and in our own time.

"We have already paid him a substantial amount of funds and volunteers have had to take his place."

Mr Lythgoe suffered a heart attack before he took early retirement from Hyndburn Council in 1992.

He refused to attend a formal presentation and organised his own "private goodbye."

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