BLACK and minority ethnic communities could bear the brunt of Council funding cuts, a meeting has heard.

Bradford Council is running a public consultation into plans to cut £32m from its budgets over the next two years.

But a variety of groups who work with black and minority ethnic (BME) communities expressed their alarm at some of the suggested budget cuts at a consultation meeting this week.

Under the current proposals, grants to the voluntary and community sector for projects such as cook and eat sessions, exercise classes, breastfeeding support, sexual health, stop-smoking work, cancer awareness, healthy lifestyle education and teenage pregnancy work would all cease.

Much of this work is concentrated within BME communities and low-income areas, so Bradford's Consortia of Ethnic Minority Organisations organised a consultation event at the Grange Interlink community centre in Great Horton to hear people's concerns.

There, deputy Council leader, Councillor Val Slater, said the authority valued the voluntary and community sector but it was facing increasingly difficult decisions and had already had to cut areas such as PCSO funding, economic development, bin collections, mobile libraries and street lighting.

She added: "As some of you found when we had that snow and ice flurry, we have had to cut down on winter gritting and yes, it applies to my street and I found it very difficult to get out of my drive and turn round.

"It affects all of us. No-one is immune."

Cllr Slater said as the Council was forced to stop doing things it once did, it was now "about all of us stepping up".

She said: "I think there has been a tendency to think this is just something for the Council to do.

"I'm going to use that dreaded phrase, we actually are 'all in this together'."

Anthony Clipsom, director of the Bradford Community and Voluntary Service, said the worry was that while they were being told "the community is going to do more for itself", the infrastructure that underpinned this work was threatened by cuts.

He said: "If you are relying on a community centre to run a luncheon club for older people, that won't happen if the community centre is shut."

Yemi Fagborun, of the West Bowling-based charity Peacemaker International, said a lack of grant funding "may lead to the closure of some organisations".

"That will leave a very big gap," she warned.

Humayun Islam, chief executive of West Bowling's BEAP Community Partnership, which works with the Bangladeshi community, said the impact of the cuts on their organisation "would be very, very drastic".

He said they had built up a lot of trust with Bangladeshi service users, who would be unlikely to go elsewhere for help.

He said: "Bangladeshi service users will not access other services so will continue to come to BEAP."

Other speakers said the first wave of South Asian immigrants to Bradford were now elderly and needed support, which was less likely to come from within families now it was more common for both men and women to be in work.

Bradford's budget will be finalised on February 23.

The consultation closes on February 12. To take part, visit bradford.gov.uk/budget.

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