Council outlines how it will spend £105m

The Council has set out how it will spend £105m in its capital programme for 2011/12 and it seems that the elderly and children with special needs stand to gain the most. £15m The Council had previously committed to the Odsal Sporting Village has been withdrawn, but new care homes and special schools will receive funding.

Council Leader Ian Greenwood made the announcements at an executive meeting in City Hall on Tuesday. It followed 60 hours of meetings between political group leaders since the summer, which had made priorities of protecting the most vulnerable, the regeneration of the city centre and the creation of jobs.

Breakdown of the budget

• £17m to replace 11 care homes with 2 new homes and extra external care housing;
• £10m to build a school for children with social, emotional and behavioural needs;
• £5m to convert the former Thorn Park School for the Deaf into a new Communication and Interaction School;
• £9m to be spent on a package of measures to support jobs, inward investment and regeneration, but the details were the subject of confidential negotiations;
• £17.5m in regeneration to support moving the magistrate’s court;
• £1m to cover the cost of a new health centre in Keighley;
• £9.4m on Connecting Airedale, a scheme which aims to improve highways on Canal Road and bus priority measures on the A650 corridor.

All 90 councillors will decide on the proposals, as well as an alternative budget being compiled by the Conservative group, tomorrow.











Bradford Magistrates Court, which is due to be moved to a new site.