Further funding cuts and deferred payments that will affect projects in Bradford have been revealed by Yorkshire Forward.

As well as the £1.3 million deferment of a payment to the flagship City Park project, reported in yesterday’s Telegraph & Argus, the regional development agency is to defer £200,000 from a planned employment scheme and intends to cut £350,000 from a number of development and business projects.

The agency has confirmed that it must make cuts of £40 million this year after ministers slashed its budget, ahead of it being scrapped altogether.

The axe will fall in Bradford in the following areas:

  • The Tyrls – a £100,000 cut in maintenance work on the former city centre police station, half of which has been demolished to make way for the City Park development and mirror pool.
  • Bradford Digital Media – a £55,000 cut in funding to run the Velocity business premises in Listerhills, which has been incorporated into developer Mi7’s student village.
  • Bradford Urban Regeneration Company – a £100,000 cut in funding to feasibility and marketing work by Bradford Centre Regeneration which was taken back into Bradford Council at the end of January.
  • Southgate development – a £95,000 cut in the legal costs relating to a £6 million loan from Bradford Council which has allowed the hotel and office development at the junction of Thornton Road and Godwin Street in the city centre to go ahead. Yorkshire Forward was to pay the legal costs, but the Council will now have to.
  • Bradford employment growth and retention – deferment of a £200,000 payment to a scheme which has not yet been implemented which offers support for employers to recruit local staff.
  • And, as reported yesterday, Business forest and City Park – deferment of £1,297,008 out of a £6.7 million promise from Yorkshire Forward which allowed the City Park scheme to begin earlier this year. The Council has pledged the project will still go ahead as planned and will still open next summer.

Barra Mac Ruairi, the Council’s strategic director for regeneration, said: “We know there is a 25 per cent cut in departmental spending, so I am going to worry about the 75 per cent that is still there. Clearly we will articulate our case and fight as much as we can for everything that we can receive into the district.”

Yorkshire Forward, which is scheduled to wind up by March, 2012, has declared its intention to “fund all projects marked for deferral” in the following year – but this is dependent on its future budget.

The six-acre park is being funded by £10 million of the cash the Council received from the sale of Leeds-Bradford Airport, Yorkshire Forward’s £6.7m and contributions from the Regional Transport Board and the Homes and Communities Agency.

It is not expected that the Council will have to provide any extra funds over and above its original commitment.