A leading Tory councillor has blasted the need to bail out Keighley Women's Centre as 'almost moral blackmail'.

Anne Hawkesworth is angry that she had to agree to hand over Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) cash - Keighley's windfall from the government two years ago - to keep the centre open.

The SRB partnership board stepped in this month after hearing that Labour-run Bradford council had refused to renew the centre's grant.

The board's decision to give £10,000, to pay staff wages from this April to September, was rubber-stamped last week by the council's Keighley Area Panel. As a member of the panel, Cllr Hawkesworth supported the SRB funding decision but regretted it had to be made. "It was quite clear that funds (SRB) given by the past government should be for new projects, not to 'pick up the tabs' that Bradford council won't pay," she says.

"The Women's Centre should have received council funding but wasn't. For this reason I feel the SRB seemed to have no choice."

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