Staying Put - Bradford's domestic violence unit - is facing a cash crisis.

The group's Home Office £380,000-a-year funding runs out at the end of March and unless they get more, the scheme will close.

Set up in 2001 as a pilot - then extended by a year - Staying Put has looked after more than 800 women and around 1,000 children in the area.

The scheme looks to keep battered women and children in their own homes with protection rather than being forced to flee to safety from violent partners.

Co-ordinator Jane Liddell said it would be "very sad" if Staying Put came to an end.

"We have certainly discovered there are effective ways of dealing with domestic violence which will become part of the mainsteam in the future," she said.

"It proves women and children do not have to flee and hide. It means they stay at home and the children get to keep their toys, their pets, their schools and their friends.

"It also means that violent men have to learn that they may have to go."

Talks will be held later this week with officials from the Council in a bid to find the funding so it can continue.

Staying Put was started by the Home Office as a pilot for one year and was then extended because of its success.

Women either contact the organisation themselves or are referred from the police's domestic violence unit.

There are around 20 staff at the project and although it initially started in Bradford alone it now includes all the districts.

Around 37 per cent of cases are from Asian or black backgrounds and this is hailed a major breakthrough.

Extra security measures are provided such as new locks, repairs to windows and doors, panic alarms and mobile-phones.

There is a 24-hour care line an legal support is also provided. Often the project's workers will accompany a victim to see a solicitor or go to court.

Only in the very worst cases are women moved out of their homes.

Wendy Gledhill, joint co-ordinator, said: "If a woman has to move out then she can become isolated.

"The majority of everyone we deal with now accepts that staying put is the best all round in most cases.

"It is the only scheme in the country and we believe it should continue."

A spokesman for the Government Office for Yorkshire and Humberside said: "Staying Put was a pilot scheme funded through the Home Office whose funding has already been extended by one year.

"The intention was always that if it was successful the scheme would seek to carry on with long-time funding from other sources."