A FORMER Scottish BHS employee fighting to save thousands of workers’ pensions has called on Sir Philip Green to “do the right thing” and plug a massive black hole.

Lin Macmillan spoke out the day after Scotland’s last store at St Enoch Shopping Centre closed its doors for the final time leaving workers distraught.

Sixteen stores were closed in Scotland with the loss of 800 jobs.

Macmillan worked in Aberdeen’s Union Street branch for eight years in the 1980s and launched a petition called “Sell the Yachts and Pay the Pensions” to increase the pressure on former BHS owner Green, who sold the company for a pound last year while leaving a pension deficit of £571 million.

Macmillan said: “I feel very, very sad for all the staff who have lost their jobs but also extremely angry because staff have said they blame Philip Green and I think it is fairly clear the MPs blamed him for much of what has happened to BHS.

“I too, blame him, because I think he failed to invest in BHS during the years he and his family owned the company and at the same time he and his family took enormous dividends.

“There are an awful lot of things that could have been done in hindsight. The Pensions Regulator should have had a bigger role to play, particularly when BHS was sold to Dominic Chappell for a pound.

“I think there are issues the government needs to take up.

“There are lessons to be learned about the regulation of private companies, particularly to people who are clearly not competent to run them.

“I don’t think anyone could have saved it as recently as last year because it was too far gone by then.

“Retail is competitive but you have to move with the times and face up to competition by investing and it was very clear that the investment was not happening because nothing changed much in the years that the Green family owned BHS.”

Yesterday reports claimed that BHS pensioners face a lengthy wait for their payments as it will take months for Green to broker a deal to plug the retailer’s pension black hole.

Green promised MPs more than two months ago that he would “sort” BHS’s pension deficit after the collapse of the retail chain left a £571m hole.

Macmillan said: “We are just trying to keep up the pressure on Philip Green and I heard yesterday he said he might voluntarily put in some money if the Pension Regulator stops hassling him.

“I think that’s absolutely monstrous. He has got to do the right thing, he has got to do the decent thing. For the sake of all the people whose pensions are affected I think that people should try and speed this up.”

Green wants the Pensions Regulator to drop its anti-avoidance investigation into his ownership before he settles a deal that would be the first voluntary contribution of its kind.

However, industry sources say that while “it was an obvious desire” of the billionaire, now holidaying on his £100m yacht around the Greek Islands, “there was no standard practice” to suggest the watchdog would agree to such demands.

The Pensions Regulator expects to have made progress with its probe by the end of the year and as a result it is unwilling to enter into deals until it has come to a conclusion about whether the Topshop owner tried to avoid his pension responsibilities.