Bradford will be one of the areas hit hardest by the fall-out from the local authority budget cuts, according to a leading figure in the region’s voluntary and community sector.

The city ranks alongside Hull, Doncaster and North East Lincolnshire because they are all disadvantaged areas with the lowest levels of employment and social capital.

This is the forecast by the Yorkshire & The Humber Forum, which leads the voluntary and community sector across the region.

Figures so far are showing more than a third of all voluntary organisations across the region will be affected by the cuts, with more than 26,000 jobs at risk.

Alison Haskins, deputy director of the Forum, said: “Bradford is one of the most disadvantaged areas of our region and is also one of the districts that may find it hardest to recover from the recession.”

According to the Forum, in Bradford 3,945 people are employed in the voluntary sector, nearly 1,500 of whom will be at risk of losing their jobs if the organisations cannot function without local authority money.

But Anthony Clipsom, who is director of Bradford Council for Voluntary Services, said the figure could well be higher than that, if part-time jobs are included.

“It could be as many as five or six thousand. It’s difficult to estimate and really it’s all speculation until the Council shows its hand.”

What is known, he said, was that jobs would go in some organisations getting funds from the primary care trust and those that had benefited from the working neighbourhoods fund.

Dave Forrest, director of Volunteering Bradford, said the district had more than 2,800 community and voluntary organisations and the effect of local authority cuts would be inevitable.