Councillors representing Toller believe £100,000 from a ward investment fund allocated for the area will be approved shortly.

Today, the Telegraph & Argus reported how £600,000 of Bradford Council’s £3 million fund remained unallocated two years after it was introduced.

In addition councillors in Toller ward had not spent any of the cash designed to benefit communities.

The Council set up the fund in 2007 using part of the proceeds from the sale of Leeds-Bradford International Airport, which it partly owned.

It allocated £100,000 to each ward in the district and councillors were asked to put forward suitable projects.

As of last month, 159 project proposals had been submitted and 134 of these were approved. The total value of all the schemes is £2,382,060.

Nine of the 30 wards have spent the full £100,000 allocation.

Now the councillors of Toller have spoken about the delays in getting their projects approved.

Councillor Arshad Hussain (Con) told the Telegraph & Argus that in the beginning some of the schemes they favoured proved to either not be feasible or were taking too long, so they had to look elsewhere.

He said: “We have now identified a number of projects which are spread across the ward, and benefit such schemes as community centres and a landscaping project. We hope that they will be approved shortly.

“I wanted to ensure that they benefited as many of our constituents as possible.”

And Councillor Amir Hussain (Lab) said that one of the reasons for the delays was that two big projects he favoured were also waiting on news of funding elsewhere before a decision could be made by the ward investment fund administrators.

He said: “We are just seeking clarification on one or two things, but I hope that an agreement will be reached in a couple of weeks.”