SCHEMES in Scarborough and York are to be affected by £40 million of cuts that regional development agency Yorkshire Forward has had to cut from its 2010/11 budget.

York Central has had £40,000 cut from £140,000 the agency had allocated it for consultancy work.

Further consultancy work in York is to be cut with a further £190,000 from York’s Renaissance Team, which means that the consultant Yorkshire Forward was going to bring in to consult on all York’s regeneration sites, including York Central, and prepare a masterplan for the future of the city, will no longer be appointed and work will be shared between the council and Yorkshire Forward’s in-house staff.

Scarborough has also been hit with the deferral of £289,550 from assistance acquiring leases forming part of the development of its Futurist Theatre complex, as well as deferring an £800,000 for the redevelopment of Scarborough Spa and surrounding public realm works.

The Rural Access to Opportunities programme, which helps unemployed people in rural areas access training and work through schemes like Wheels to Work, has had £106,500 cut from its budget for North Yorkshire.

East Riding of Yorkshire Council has had £339,600 deferred from a programme to support businesses in recruiting and retaining local people to prevent them returning to the benefits system.

Business Link Yorkshire has also had its funding cut by £1.5 million.

Yorkshire Forward said it expected the cuts could result in a maximum potential loss of £271.8 million in economic output, measured by gross value added (GVA). It could also result in the failure to create 7,437 jobs, 1,591 new businesses, and failure to support 24,160 more businesses.