Redundancy and holiday allocation

[miniandy]

Hello,

I was made redundant the other week and on having my exit interview (before you are escorted from the building) I was told that I owed 52.5 hours of holiday and they would just deduct this from my final payout. However I dispute the amount, but there is no appeal process in place, so I am basically ed.

Back in November I booked 2 weeks' holiday for 25th January to 8th February. On the 24th of January I found out that I would be part of a mass redundancy, but as yet they did not know who or when or any terms, but that my team were 'at risk' and wouldn't exist as of the 18th April.

I took my holiday and came back to work. About a week later it was announced that we would only be getting 8 days holiday allocation (pro rata) for the period January - 18th April. Now I was told that I couldn't take any more holidays as I had used my allocation, but I was not told that I had gone over. They did say however that if (from the point they announced it) I were to take holidays then they would deduct these from my final pay, which is fair enough.

Now I didn't take any further holidays as I did not want to have them taken from my final pay, but they are now saying I owe them. My argument is that I booked and took my holidays before they imposed the 8 day term, and so I should not owe them anything.

Please help. It's looking like I owe them nearly a grand. Ouch.