Video: Funding fear after Bradford is catapulted onto world film stage

Bradford, which beat iconic cinema cities such as Los Angeles and Cannes for the prestigious Unesco title in June 2009, has already had to scale down its projects because of the recession.

Now the main council scheme for funding the project – which received 200,000 for its first two years – faces being axed.

And to add to the uncertainty, regional development agency Yorkshire Forward, which had provided a further 15,000, is now itself being abolished, and a 30,000 grant from film agency Screen Yorkshire is a one-off.

Eye-catching plans unveiled at the launch, such as a Hollywood-style "Bradford" sign, have been abandoned because of a lack of funds and questions are being asked about how initiatives, already produced on a shoestring budget, can be meaningfully

sustained with even less to spend.

Unesco – the United Nations cultural arm – said it has the right to remove the "City of Film" title, but would not do so even if funding meant promises could not be fulfilled.

City of Film director Peg Alexander insists they have already achieved a lot with little money and will continue.

Bradford Council has until now provided most of the funding under its Working Neighbourhoods Fund (WNF). But 1.4m was axed from this in June by the Government – and it could go completely next year.

Ms Alexander, 41, said: "Over the next few months, we're going to be entering an interesting time where we're very seriously talking to a range of different people about what happens after April 2011.

"The tag is not going to go away and Bradford will continue to use it, so that's not in doubt. What we need to look at is how much additional support there is for additional activities."

Welcome to Yorkshire chief executive Gary Verity warned: "It can't run on thin air. These things have to be promoted and encouraged, and the opportunities and the potential of that status realised.

"Resources need to be made available for that to happen. Getting the status as the world's first City of Film is the important thing. It's easy in these times to become all doom and gloom about this and not think that Unesco has given them that award.

"Considering the recession they have got off to a pretty good start. We are geared up to include them as part of our plans for next year."

Bradford South MP Gerry Sutcliffe said: "We should fight to make sure we keep as much of the funding there as possible. It would be a lost opportunity to build on the uniqueness of being Unesco City of Film if the funding was to run out."

City of Film's ambitions have been scaled back and could be reduced further without more cash, but its tangible achievements include a trail showing the area's movie locations and promoting film tourism in Bradford.

"When the bid documents were written with this big programme in it, there was a natural expectation that there would be money from all these places," Ms Alexander added. "What would happen was that I would build up more of an infrastructure, but that didn't happen – I came into the post when the world was a changed place."

The limited company running the scheme received 259,000 – including 14,000 from tourism board Welcome to Yorkshire – between April 2009 and March 2011.

"There's no doubt that I could do a lot more now if I had more resources," Ms Alexander said. "There's always more you can do if you have more budget – but moving forward, what can happen centrally will be determined on what budgets are available."

A spokesman for the Department of Communities and Local Government said significant funding remains to let the WNF programme to continue.