Unhappy former staff at the Daniel's Head eco-resort say they have lost out on severance pay they claim they are owed, despite the lease being sold on.

One staff member said she was owed around $2,000 severance pay because she was not given two weeks' notice when the resort at the former Canadian Naval base in Sandys closed in 2002.

Shadow Tourism Minister David Dodwell and business partner Russell Urban are under contract to take over the resort, which closed in 2002 when a company set up by San Diego-based Excel Legacy went into liquidation. Bank of Butterfield, which had a mortgage on the property, is selling on the lease through receivers KPMG.

Mr. Dodwell and Mr. Urban say they are spending $4.5 million on obtaining the lease and investing on the site, which is owned by Bermuda Land Development Company.

But the disgruntled former Daniel's Head employee said when she called the receivers, she was informed that despite the sale, there was no money left to pay the dozen or so staff who say they are entitled to severance money.

"It is not fair because we all worked so hard to put the place together and now it has been destroyed. Everyone else seems to be profiting and we have just been kicked away," said the former worker, who asked not to be named.

"When we went to the receiver, the response was the place has been sold but there is not enough to pay the staff. I don't think Mr. Dodwell even knows we have not been paid.

"All we keep getting from the union is that as far as they know, we have been paid. Chris Furbert (of the Bermuda Industrial Union) contacted the lawyer (for Excel) and was told we had received severance pay, but we had not.

"The ones that were here for more than a year were given two weeks' vacation pay, but despite getting only two days' notice, we didn't get severance pay."

Mr. Dodwell said yesterday: "I haven't the faintest idea about this. The staff would need to contact the receiver. It was not a subject that came up in any of our negotiations."