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.

Yorkshire 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.

Serious 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."

Communities 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