Government officials will be asked this month to approve a multi-million pound action plan to breath new life into deprived Manningham and Girlington.

The long-awaited £9 million Single Regeneration Budget programme is expected to swing into action within a few weeks once it has the Government's seal of approval.

It follows the findings of the high-powered Commission on the 1995 Manningham riots and based on a massive survey into what people wanted.

Now the plan is expected to pass its final milestone with the Government's go-ahead and begin its first innovative education and employment-based schemes.

The aim is to tackle the huge youth unemployment crisis and help youngsters to achieve good educational qualifications.

Today the new SRB Chief Executive Stephen Boyle said the draft of the first year's programme would go to Government officers on February 12 and he hoped the scheme would be well off the ground by June.

Projects expected to start operating this year include: a programme focusing on very young children and families to improve English by the time they reach schools; expanding on the existing reading partnerships already operating in other parts of the district; expanding the concept of homework centres by operating a network of facilities; and at least three resource centres for the unemployed.

A partnership board which includes Bradford Congress, the Council and other organisations held its first formal meeting last week and will meet regularly to consider project

Partnership Board Chairman, Councillor Shaukat Ahmed, said: "The problems here are serious and it is going to mean a lot of hard work."

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