The charity that runs Fairfield Halls has filed for administration three days after the venue shut its doors for a £30m refurbishment.

Fairfield (Croydon) Ltd emailed staff this morning to inform them it was unable to pay their redundancy settlements and that administrators Herron Fisher had been appointed to oversee the charity.

The council-owned theatre complex closed for a two-year revamp on Friday, with the loss of 220 jobs, despite a vocal campaign to keep parts of the building open during the work. 

The collapse of Fairfield (Croydon) Ltd left employees fearing they will be left out of pocket, but the charity insisted this afternoon that all would receive full payouts.

One staff member, who did not want to be named, said: "All staff were told a few weeks ago that there might not be enough money to pay redundancies but we were asked not to discuss it with anyone, especially social media.

"We have been asking questions almost on a daily basis and still no answers have been given. They have actually gone out of their way not to discuss it. The majority of us have now left and we still don't know if we will be paid."

Chris Herron, joint administrator at Herron Fisher, said payouts were likely to be delayed but added he was "hopeful" the Government's redundancy payment service would fund packages for all staff.

He added: "We've no reason to think that won't be the case and we will be talking to staff in the next couple of days and helping them with that process, to make those claims. Hopefully that will still be good news for the staff as far as that goes."

Under the Government's statutory redundancy scheme, employees who have clocked up more than two years service are entitled to between a week's pay and 1.5 week’s pay for each year worked, depending on their age.

Tim Godfrey, Croydon Council's cabinet member for culture, said in March that the authority would pay Fairfield Ltd £800,000 to fund redundancy payouts so staff did not have to apply to the Government.

He told the Croydon Guardian: "If the Fairfield had fallen over without council support at any time in the past few years or in the future those staff would have lost their jobs and had to claim statutory redundancy pay from the Government.

“This way ensures they are all treated fairly and properly.”

Asked about the money today, Cllr Godfrey denied the council had committed to funding staff payouts.

He said the authority had given the Fairfield (Croydon) Ltd £750,000 to cover redundancies "amongst a number of other things".

Asked why the sum had proved insufficient to pay staff, he said: "That's a question for Fairfield."

In a statement issued this afternoon, a spokeswoman for Fairfield (Croydon) Ltd said: "The funds from the council were both to continue the programme at the venue and some support towards closure.

"The £750k funding from the council for the last period, was not sufficient to cover the balance sheet, redundancies and other costs directly caused by closure.

"As with most major venues of this type it it common to receive local authority funding and also to run current account deficits."

The spokeswoman said staff had been due to receive only statutory redundancy pay before Fairfield (Croydon) Ltd went into administration and would still receive "100%" of that money.

Administrators will also be looking to "sell whatever can be sold" of Fairfield (Croydon) Ltd's assets, said Mr Herron.

He added: "We don't have the premises, the council have got the premises back, so it just whatever is left, really. 

"There might be some intellectual property and maybe some physical assets, [although] most of that has been sold already because obviously the site had to be cleared by the end of Friday so they made a real effort to sell things and turn them into cash."

A former Fairfield employee, who said they had been expecting thousands of pounds in redundancy money, said: "So [many] assets [have been] sold at very high prices over the past few weeks. Technical equipment, grand pianos, etc. 

"We can't understand where the money went."