AN AMBITIOUS £50 million project to improve the lives of young families in Bradford will see new, safe places to play for toddlers and parents encouraged to start thinking about their child's health before they are born.

The Lottery-funded Better Start Bradford campaign is an attempt to improve the lives of 20,000 children in some of the city's poorest areas over the next decade.

The money has been given to the Better Start Bradford community partnership led by Bradford Trident, which works with families in Bowling and Barkerend, Bradford Moor and Little Horton.

The scheme's success would then lead to similar practices

Announced in June, recently announced targets include cutting the number of children who start school classed as obese by a quarter, improving language skills of toddlers and providing new, safe play environments.

And it will follow the progress of a "cohort of babies" to see how the interventions are improving their lives.

Bradford Council's children's services scrutiny committee will next week receive an update on the project.

They will hear of projects that make up the scheme such as:

* Bump Start Your Baby, which will see professionals engaging with families before the baby is born.

* Fall in love with your baby, which will offer support in the period shortly after the baby has been born.

* Babies and bonding, which attempts to cut down on post natal depression and help mother and child to bond at an early stage, as well as ensuring the baby grows up with good mental health.

* Eat, live, love, which will improve nutrition in babies and toddlers and make sure families are able to provide a healthy diet as their child grows up.

* Talking together - a scheme to help reduce the "significant number" of children not reaching their required language skills by the start of school.

* Better Place, which will provide more play facilities and reduce the amount of emissions children and pregnant mothers are exposed to.

The project will be run by a team within Bradford Trident and use children's centres and community hubs.

By the end of the ten-year project the goals are for 95 per cent of pregnant woman to be involved before their 13th week of pregnancy, a 25 per cent reduction in obesity in reception year, and for children in the area to be at the national average for communication and literacy.

Councillor Ralph Berry, executive for children's services, said: "This is a massively important project to give children the best start in live, and we will use the evidence to see what really works.

"We will work with parents, not doing things to them. We can replicate these techniques across Bradford, it won't just benefit the people of BD5 and BD3."

The committee meets at City Hall next Tuesday from 4.30pm.