Exclusive: £100m cuts as flagship schemes and transport face the chop
The Government has announced that more than 50m will be axed from local authorities and the Yorkshire Post can exclusively reveal the details of where Yorkshire Forward plans to make 44m of cuts.
Major flagship schemes such as Tower Works in Leeds, Bradford City Park, the Spa redevelopment in Scarborough, and the 1bn York Central transformation scheme are all being hit.
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Hide AdYorkshire Forward is also cutting its contribution to local councils with nearly 3m taken from each of Bradford, Leeds and Barnsley councils.
And in a further blow to the region many vital transport projects – which had successfully gone through the first stages of approval from the previous Government – are now on hold. They will be reassessed after the new regime completes a comprehensive spending review in the autumn.
They include the Leeds trolleybus scheme, improvements to railway stations throughout West Yorkshire and congestion-easing projects in the south and east of the region.
The new coalition Government has also gone back on a deal struck before the General Election, where the region had underspent 47m on major transport projects and was allowed to redistribute the money on smaller schemes such as bus lanes. The Department for Transport has said it will now only release 23.5m of that cash.
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Hide AdSerious concerns have been raised over the extent of the cuts, with sources suggesting many were chosen for speed rather than on merit.
It is understood the Leeds Arena is not on the Yorkshire Forward list of possible savings as funds for the controversial project are committed and the scheme would be too complicated to unravel.
Sheffield South East MP Clive Betts said: "This raises the issue of how much pressure the Department for Business is taking at the moment. Some projects are being cut because they offer immediate savings and they do not carry immediate benefits. For example the 80m loan to Sheffield Forgemasters – if the Government decides to save money by withdrawing that because it is immediate you will lose the skills and the future economic potential of the steelworks because it will go abroad."
And chief executive of the City of York Council Kersten England said: "The council and its partners in the private sector have a clear programme to support inward investment and business growth for York, which is in line with the government's stated intention of rebalancing the economy and promoting private sector."
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Hide AdCommunities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles gave MPs details of the 1.166bn reduction in Government grants.
The cuts will see Barnsley Council lose nearly 3m from its grant, Bradford and Leeds will lose over 7m each, Sheffield City Council will lose 6.5m and North Yorkshire County Council will lose 3.6m.
Mr Pickles said: "I am absolutely clear about the importance of the services which local government provides. We have been determined to ensure local authorities can shield key frontline services."
Where the axe will fall...
Local authorities - Totals cut
Barnsley 2.75m
Bassetlaw 0.02m
Bradford 7.26m
Calderdale 1.53m
Chesterfield 0.16m
Craven 0.02m
Derbyshire 4.17m
Doncaster 4.53m
East Riding 2.01
Hull 3.90m
Kirklees 2.3m
Leeds 7.41m
NE Lincs 2.98m
North Yorks 3.66m
Rotherham 2.41m
Scarborough 0.02m
Selby 0.02m
Sheffield 6.54m
Wakefield 2.37m
York 1.18m
Yorkshire Forward - Totals cut
Scarborough (Spa redevelopment and Futurist Theatre) 1m
Barnsley Council 3m
Leeds City Council 3m
Bradford Council 2.5m
Bradford forest and city park project 1.3m
Tower Works development in Leeds 2.5m
Funding for York Central redevelopment to be cut