Youngsters have been promised the return of a motorcycle club which boasts some of the best facilities in the country.

The Birstall Urban Motorcycle Project for Youth (BUMPY) in Howden Clough has 42 motorbikes and purpose-built off-road courses on its nine acres site.

But since losing lucrative contracts to work with young offenders the project has had no cash to run a young riders club - which was the reason BUMPY started 11 years ago.

Project manager Kath Smith said: "Helping young people who live locally is what we're all about but we're having to turn them away.

"We have a long waiting list of kids who want to take part but we can only afford to run the club one night a week and let 25 youngsters come."

The project, which costs £300,000 a year to run, lost more than a third of its income last month when the West Yorkshire Probation Service ended a referral scheme which sent offenders from across the county for classroom-based courses at the centre in Leeds Road.

Mrs Smith said special schools, which once regularly sent pupils for courses, also no longer had the money to use the centre.

An application for a lottery grant to run the young riders club has been lodged but the project must wait six months for the outcome. Project members are hoping to appoint a fund-raiser to help secure new sources of cash.

Core activities at BUMPY include outreach work where youngsters from large council housing estates are bussed in - a scheme partly paid for by the Dewsbury Single Regeneration Budget.

The centre also runs on-road training for riders.

BUMPY director Graham Eaves, who helped found the project, said: "We were lucky for a long time. We had the probation contract for six years and it gave us a foundation from which to build.

"Now there's less money and more charities fighting for it.

"We could make a fortune by running corporate days for businesses and dump the charity side but that's not what BUMPY is all about.

"We're about helping young people develop, they need a focus and there's nothing like this facility anywhere else."

Randel Barrows, divisional chief probation officer for Bradford, said offenders convicted of car crimes now undertook the same courses as other offenders.

He said: "We have had to make some difficult decisions based on money and priorities.

"BUMPY has been successful with offenders and we want to learn from that."

e-mail: david.firth

@bradford.newsquest.co.uk

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