SOUP kitchen groups hoping to move from a dilapidated Bradford church into a new city centre base have won the support of Council leader David Green.

Groups met representatives of Leeds Roman Catholic Diocese last week to discuss the old school building at St Patrick's Church, off Westgate, as their new home.

The Welcome Project, The Curry Project and Forward In Faith are among groups which need new premises after the rundown state of St Mary's Church in Barkerend Road meant they could no longer feed the homeless from there.

Diocese property director Kevin Anderson said it was making strides to help make the move to St Patrick's happen.

Contractors have already been called into the building to carry out surveys, he said and added: "We are still 100 per cent behind the project at this time."

St Mary's was also owned by the Diocese but is now up for sale. It needs extensive repairs and is deemed not safe enough for the soup kitchen groups to work from. It had let the groups use the building for free over the past eight years.

Eileen Armstrong, of The Welcome Project, said plans were moving in the right direction and Councillor Green had pledged his support.

She said: "We are getting good support, Dave Green has been especially helpful. We will be needing lots more help to raise funds and to equip the place out to make it happen."

Cllr Green, who heads the Labour-run authority, said: "We are keen to provide whatever help we can.

"We hope we will be able to facilitate within the law planning and anything else that will need to be done as quickly as possible.

"These groups provide an important service to some of the most vulnerable groups in our society - not just in the direct service they offer but also in signposting people to other agencies for further help."

St Patrick's is a listed building which means there will be some hurdles to cross for the church's old school building in Sedgefield Terrace to be converted into a kitchen and area for the groups to use.

Mr Anderson said: "There is a lot of enthusiasm for the project which is admirable but there is still a lot of work and discussions to be had.

"The groups all need to draw up plans and a vision for how they intend to use the building and we will look at that.

"There might be some planning issues to overcome because of the church being a listed building."