Council for Racial Equality asked to investigate Council's treatment of Regen 2000

11.24.16am UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 28th Oct 2005

Councillor David Ward (Liberal Democrat, Idle), Chair of Bradford North Area Committee has today written to the Commission for Racial Equality seeking advice on the process for instigating a CRE investigation into his claim that Bradford Council has been guilty of institutional racism in its dealings with Regen 2000.

The Board of Regen 2000 has been sacked by the Council and publicly branded a failure.

In his letter Councillor Ward accuses the Council of double standards in the way that it has publicly vilified the community members of the Regen 2000 Board compared to the treatment of the Newlands Community Association (successor to Newlands Partnership Board). Newland Community Association, despite failing to achieve organisational fitness since it was set up, has received more than ample time to get its act together without attracting any public attention or any public warnings from the Council.

Councillor Ward adds:

"The treatment of the Regen 2000 Board members has been cruel, unfair and unjustified. The rumour that it has massively underspent, despite all funds being committed on projects, has not been publicly dispelled by the Council. They seem intent on letting the Board members accept the blame for the failure to deliver on major projects which the Council itself is responsible for managing.

With Newlands, where the Board Chair is a former Councillor from the majority ethnic community they appear to be guaranteed Council support. But if you are a local member from a minority community involved with Regen 2000, you are offered no support or even advice by the Council.

I am not accusing any individuals within the Council of personally being racist but I do think that as an institution it has failed to even begin to grasp the relationship that exists between Community Board members in places like BD3 and the community they were elected to serve.

Many members of the Board have given literally thousands of hours on a voluntary basis to the work of the Board and have been branded as failures without any formal warnings or reports being issued by the Council "

The Council is attempting to set up an unelected advisory Steering Group to run Regen 2000 but is insistent that the Chair of that Board cannot be a community member as it admits it could not guarantee full support for that person.

So far community members have refused to be part of any such group. Councillor Ward has asked the Council to attend the next meeting of the Bradford North Area Committee to report back on both Regen 2000 and the Newlands Community Association.