Government deprivation cutbacks hit Little London

2.15.00pm GMT Tue 4th Mar 2008

Central government cutbacks in funding to tackle high levels of deprivation have hit Little London hard, meaning services have had to be cut for the next financial year.

The government ended the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund this year and replaced it with the Working Neighbourhoods Fund. To qualify a council must have 20% of its neighbourhoods in the 10% most deprived in the country. Leeds misses out on this by 0.04% but will lose all of the funding it was previously entitled to under NRF. The total for the city in the current financial year was £14.939m, of which Little London received around £143,000 last year.

Leeds Lib Dem and Labour MPs were united in criticism of the government cutbacks in a parliamentary debate that took place recently, with members of all three main parties attacking the way that the funding has been allocated.

The projects that will be affected by the cuts include highly successful schemes such as supporting an intensive family support worker, helping families in need of guidance and support. The area also benefited from an environmental enforcement officer, employed in order to help improve the cleanliness of the area. Both of these posts will no longer receive funding, meaning the much needed work will not continue in future years.

Cllr Penny Ewens (Lib Dem, Hyde Park and Woodhouse) said:

"This is very bad news for the area. We are now going to see the results on the ground of the Labour government's decision to cut funding for the most deprived communities in Leeds.

"We have done all we can to prolong these projects for as long as possible but with a cut of this scale it was impossible to save all the schemes and really difficult decisions have had to be made.

"Ironically you could argue that it is the very success of these schemes that has led to us losing out on funding in future years.

"In almost all cases these projects have been extremely successful and in some cases have greatly over-achieved on their objectives. It is perverse however, for the government to use this success as a reason to stop their funding. Little London remains one of the most deprived areas in Leeds.

Whilst we will continue to do all we can to improve the area, it is extremely frustrating that the government leaves us hamstrung in this way."

Cllr Richard Brett (Lib Dem, Burmantofts and Richmond Hill), Deputy Leader of the council and Executive Member responsible for Finance added:

"This is a knife edge decision that has gone the wrong way. If the government civil servants had chosen to measure numbers of residents as the criterion for granting WNF funding, rather than the number of neighbourhoods then we would have qualified.

"We have been successful in spending the money and nearly all areas of inner city wards like Gipton and Harehills, Hyde Park and Woodhouse and Kirkstall have all seen big improvements.

I now fear the result of losing this money is that the good work of officers and agencies could be undone and we will begin to slip backwards as a consequence."