A documentary describing Bradford as a "segregated" city and "an experiment in multi-culturalism" has been met with disappointment by ward councillors.

Last Orders aired last night on BBC Two as the channel's White Season got underway. The programme focused on Wibsey Working Men's Club as it struggles to stay in business.

A decline in youth interest, cheap supermarket booze and the smoking ban are all blamed for its declining popularity.

American screenwriter Henry Singer spent three months in Wibsey, involving himself in the lives of the club's members at home, at work and at the club in Wibsey High Street. Woven around the central plot is a wider look at Bradford.

In his narration Singer said: "Driving around Bradford reminds me of the segregation of cities in my own country - Detroit and Miami."

Grim scenes of the 2001 riots were shown and a broadcast extract states "today's Bradford is brutal". Comments from interviewees, Bradford residents who were in no way associated with the working men's club, included "everyone wants to get out", "I dread to think what it's going to be like for my kids growing up" and of racial tension, "I give it five years before it kicks off".

Speaking after the programme, Wibsey ward councillor David Green (Lab) said: "The perceptions of the people out there are different from what I think people would argue is the reality. But it's people's perceptions that count, we have done a lot as a Council over the last 15 years, but I don't think we have invested in the social capital."

Coun Lynne Smith (Lab, Wibsey) said: "Any criticism I have is aimed at the filmmakers, not the club. I found it did not contextualise all the footage. It wasn't too over the top, but a bit gratuitous.

"Bradford isn't the only city to have had riots, other cities have been allowed to heal.

"It's sad that it shows it as bleak when I have just been to two different community meetings in Wibsey that show a quite different picture of working class communities pulling together to try to make things better.

"It's sad that all we saw were these people in despair who in my view have been exploited by the filmmaker."

There were more than 30 people sharing two televisions to watch the documentary at the Wibsey club last night.

Banter rattled round the regulars as they saw familiar faces providing a glimpse of the togetherness hinted at by Singer in his commentary.

Shaun Hill, 43, chairman of the committee at Wibsey Working Men's Club, said: "The club would like to distance itself from any comments made by anyone in the film who is not associated with the club. Business struggles on, ballot sheets are out for members to vote in a new committee and women can now join as full members."

Coun Green added that he was willing to work with the club to help in any way he could. He said a Wibsey Urban Village group was being set up to take Wibsey forward and bring investment to the area.

In press material issued by the BBC, Singer said: "I hope viewers will have a sense that they've seen a film that's really, fundamentally, about the state of the nation. The Wibsey club is struggling for all kinds of reasons, reasons that are at the heart of changes that this country has undergone in the last 20 to 30 years."

e-mail: ben.barnett @telegraphandargus.co.uk