CITY OF PRESTON LABOUR PARTY

The Tory/Lib-Dem coalition in Preston are offering no respite from the savage cuts of their Westminster counterparts as funding to the poorest communities in the city is attacked.

Tory Leader Ken Hudson claims that £400,000 of Cameron's cuts to funding aimed at tackling unemployment can be managed from current budgets due to 'prudent' spending. However, over £100,000 designed for community projects in the poorest wards has now been frozen too.

Four Neighbourhood Management boards have been rendered useless by the inept Tory leadership as resident board members, Councillors and officers have received no indication as to when or if the funding will be returned. In a sickening mirror-image of the coalition in Westminster, the Tories are cutting services far deeper than is necessary while their Lib-Dem lapdogs look on.

Councillir Taalib Shamsuddin of St. George's ward whose Neighbourhood Management Partnership is affected by the freeze has questioned the cuts;

"How can promised funding be taken away without discussion or consultation? Our communities are banking on that money. Hundreds of residents are giving up their time and skills supporting Neighbourhood Management, community groups and kids clubs and the coalition run council and government are abandoning them."

The funding was part of the Area Based Grant introduced by the Labour Government to tackle worklessness and other poverty issues in deprived areas. The Tory/Lib-Dem coaltion in Preston has now failed to spend over £2million of the £10million grant on the issues it was designed to tackle.