The leader of Bradford Council today blasted a new report which claims more than half of the city's young people have given up hope.

The Thwarted Dreams survey questioned 308 youngsters - and found that less than 50 per cent felt positive about the future or believed they would achieve their goals.

The report also revealed that only one in ten Bradford youngsters believed they had the skills to succeed in life, compared with 34 per cent in other parts of England.

Those talked to cited poor schools, a perceived lack of prospects and racism for their lack of confidence, with young people from ethnic minorities saying they feared being trapped in a ghetto.

But Council leader Councillor Margaret Eaton said she had serious doubts about how the findings, by new charity Young Voice, were compiled. "I think there has come a time when what we need to be doing is having surveys of young people in our ethnic minority communities who are achieving, because there are a great number of them," she said.

"There are things in this report which are a cause for concern, but the trouble with surveys like this is that they become self-perpetuating.

"Without belittling the research, I have to say that these people have come from outside - like a lot of people since our troubles in July - and they are not looking at all the constructive things going on.

"I'm concerned that reports which focus on only a very small sample of people attract such potentially damaging publicity, which can affect inward investment and all the other things which we as a Council can do to improve things."

The majority of those questioned, some 86 per cent, were from the city's mainly Asian ethnic minority communities, with the research begun 18 months ago.

Some local Muslim families were shown to be fearful of allowing their daughters to attend university, with 38 per cent of young Bradfordians saying they could not study because they were "needed at home". That compared with a national figure of 13 per cent.

Young Voice founder Adrienne Katz warned that the sense of disillusion apparently uncovered by her research could have far-reaching consequences.

She said: "If young people don't feel they have a chance for a future in their own country, they are likely to look elsewhere for excitement, allegiance and loyalty.

"They need to feel valued and that there is something ahead of them - if they don't it is a very dangerous situation."