SOUTH Gloucestershire Council is to stop directly funding the Yate youth café, just two years after the £1.3million venue opened.

The authority’s three political parties have been at odds over funding arrangements for the Armadillo youth café, on Station Road, which was officially opened by Prince Edward and heralded as a pioneering project the district could be proud of.

Conservatives believe the council’s direct funding of the café, to the tune of £99,000 from an annual youth budget of £877,00, is unfair as it means youngsters in other areas receive less money for youth services.

Cllr Rob Jones (Con, Bradley Stoke South), a member of the Children and Young People Committee who has been leading the party’s opposition to the youth café funding, labelled the agreement a ‘rugged formula’. He said it had been ‘wholly wrong to allocate wildly different sums to young people based on an unfair postcode lottery’.

Cllr Matthew Riddle (Con, Severn), who at the time of the youth café’s opening in May 2011 was keen to promote the project as a joint venture and not just a Yate Town Council initiative, said: “Youngsters in Thornbury and the surrounding villages are being treated like second class citizens by this funding formula and are being told that they are worth half that of their friends on the other side of the A38 in the Frome Vale – such unfairness cannot be justified.”

The Tories had wanted to withdraw funding from the café immediately, which Yate councillors say would have left them scrabbling for funds, but a cross-party agreement to serve notice of three years has now been reached and the money will then be reallocated to all five of the authority’s area committees.

Yate councillors, who are all Liberal Democrats, pushed for a youth facility in the town for 10 years.

Party leader Cllr Ruth Davis said: "This is a fair deal. There are lots of funding anomalies we need to sort out, and this gives us the time to do it.

“If we'd just ripped up the contract with Yate, why would any organisation have trusted us in future? Withdrawing in line with our contract is the right thing to do, and means we can seek to have a fair look at all youth service provision across the board."

Labour said it acted as mediator on the deal. Cllr Gareth Manson (Lab, Woodstock) said: “We are ending the unique arrangement with the Yate youth café but are doing so in a way that honours our past agreement and gives them time to plan ahead. I was very keen that we should not renege on any deal with any youth service provider, as they are all trying to do a good job in very difficult times.”