A drive to find jobs for 1,000 young people in Manningham has won a £600,000 cash boost from Europe.

Leaders of the Manningham and Girlington Regeneration Partnership, which aims to revive the poverty-stricken inner city area, say the £9.7 million they were originally given was not enough.

They are delighted they have managed to win the extra cash.

Most of it - £425,000 - will be spent on three new neighbourhood job centres for young people, opening from March.

The centres will be at the Carlisle Business Centre, Girlington Centre and the Tradeforce Building in Cornwall Place, in the mainly Bangladeshi area near Bradford City FC.

Unlike normal job centres, the new ones will offer intensive, one-to-one support for young people through personal advisers and personal plans.

"This is an expensive system, but it does actually work and seems to be more effective than the usual job centre or New Deal set up," said Stephen Boyle, chief executive of the partnership.

He added: "Unemployment is very, very high here - four or five times the district average - and ethnicity is a factor, affecting employment opportunities and training and education."

The circumstances of each young person would be clearly identified and they would be steered towards a New Deal placement, training or education, or one of the Partnership's own new training programmes.

Specific support for young Asian women, for example, may be bought in.

The regeneration partnership believes 1,000 youngsters aged 16 to 24 are currently out of work in Manningham and Girlington.

So far the team has found between 60-70 of them a job, and has identified opportunities for 200 more in the future.

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