Scrapped rugby club funds diverted to town projects

More than £2m of funding which had been earmarked for Keighley Cougars will now be redirected to three other local projects, officials have confirmed.

The rugby club had been due to receive £2.25m in Keighley Towns Fund cash to rebuild the Danny Jones stand and create new facilities at Cougar Park, but the funding was pulled by Bradford Council's Reform UK-run leadership in the summer.

It has now been confirmed the money will instead go towards regeneration work in the town centre and two growth schemes for businesses and community groups.

The authority said the decisions on the new beneficiaries had been made after an extensive "due diligence process" and the funds would now be "reallocated".

The original amount earmarked for the Cougars came from a £33.6m grant for Keighley projects under the Towns Fund programme.

Despite the money being set aside more than four years ago, it was never handed out.

In July, the council announced the club would not get the funding, as it said the Cougars "have not been able to provide sufficient information to demonstrate the viability of their proposed project".

The council stressed that the Keighley Cougars funding was "one of the potential projects identified in the initial allocation...[as] part of a wider programme of community grant schemes".

The council confirmed £1m of the money would go towards improvement works on Cavendish Street in Keighley town centre.

The busy commercial street is in a conservation area, with many of its buildings listed.

It has already been promised a £1.4m upgrade that includes widened pavements and tree planting. The phase one work is also to be paid for from the Towns Fund.

Another £1m of the redistributed money will go towards a business growth scheme allowing firms to access grant funding for development and job creation.

A portion of the funds will also contribute to an existing community grant programme, allowing community groups to bid for new capital grants to help them grow.

The details were laid out in response to a question to the council's executive from Vaz Shabir, who is a Your Bradford Independents Group councillor in Keighley.

He had asked the decision-making executive to explain the "legal and financial justification" for pulling the money from the Cougars redevelopment project, and to "identify the exact 'alternative projects' to which this funding is currently being considered or reallocated".

In a written answer presented at a recent council meeting, the authority said: "All projects are subject to a detailed delivery and viability assessment and despite an extensive dialogue with Keighley Cougars, the council as the accountable body was unable to receive sufficient assurance within the required timescale to be able to approve this project to proceed."

The authority said the Neighbourhood Board, which oversees grants from the Towns Fund, had been kept up to date on the "due diligence process" and had been "consulted on the recommendations for the proposed reallocation of this funding within Keighley".

The three new "beneficiary projects" will get the money after a final sign-off by the council's senior finance officer, the authority said.

In 2019, the then-Conservative government announced that Keighley would be one of dozens of areas across the UK to receive at least £25m through its Towns Fund - a scheme that would see money awarded to areas to boost regeneration.

A Towns Fund board made up of local business leaders, public figures and politicians would be set up in each area to allocate where the cash should be spent, and the Keighley Towns Fund board made the Keighley Cougars project one of its priorities.

Keighley Cougars has not responded to previous requests for comment.

However the club previously responded to supporters on social media, in the wake of the scrapping of the funding, saying: "Keighley deserves and needs these new facilities."

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