BRADFORDIANS are increasingly bearing the brunt of Government cuts amid a North-South funding divide, angry council chiefs have claimed.

Bosses at Bradford Council have accused the Government of pumping cash into its southern Tory heartland at the expense of the North, in a settlement finalised this week.

The Labour-run authority's leaders reacted angrily to news that West Yorkshire councils will get none of a new £300 million fund designed to ease the impact of the cuts on local authorities.

And they say while Bradford Council is facing cuts of £40 per resident over the next two years, leafy Windsor in Berkshire is facing cuts of only £6 per person.

Bradford Council leader David Green said: "I am sick and tired of the Tories handing us the thin end of the wedge.

"We’ve spent five years being hit with an unfair share of their spending cuts and now they’re at it again.

"Despite all their empty rhetoric about the North, their actions repeatedly make clear where their real interests lie."

Cllr Green said the new relief fund unveiled this week, designed to help councils as they adjust to lower funding, was mainly headed to affluent Tory areas in the south - a move he branded "financial gerrymandering of the worst kind".

He claimed Prime Minister David Cameron was using this relief fund to "buy off" southern Tory MPs who had been threatening to rebel over council cuts in their areas.

Cllr Green said to his knowledge, neither Conservative MP for Shipley, Philip Davies, nor Conservative MP for Keighley, Kris Hopkins, had been lobbying for more cash for the Bradford district.

But Mr Davies said he had met Communities Secretary Greg Clark this week to call for the district to get more money.

And he said in the end he had abstained from voting for the local government settlement in Parliament on Wednesday, saying this year's ten per cent funding reduction from around £236m to £211m was "not a brilliant settlement for Bradford".

Mr Davies added that Cllr Green's frequent comparisons with affluent southern areas was unfair, as these areas were already getting very little in terms of Government grants.

Mr Hopkins said: "Transitional grants were only offered to those councils facing the sharpest reductions in Government funding over the next two years.

"Bradford didn’t fall into this category as its funding is not being reduced by as much."

A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said the settlement for local councils was fair and the transitional funding had gone to those councils facing the biggest fall in central government grant.

Councillor Simon Cooke, Conservative group leader at Bradford Council, said while it would have been nice for Bradford to get some of the relief fund, he understood why it had been allocated as it was.

The Local Government Association, which represents councils, has welcomed the relief fund.