Yorkshire caviar project "on brink of collapse"

The scheme, a partnership between Kirklees Council and Kirklees Green Business Network, was aimed at helping disadvantaged young people into education and employment.

The Able2 Project, located on former railway land, was to have received £1.25 million from Kirklees Council, the local newspaper the Huddersfield Daily Examiner reports.

In 2011 then council leader Mehboob Khan cut the first sod and said the scheme would put Kirklees “well and truly at the forefront of cutting edge environmental projects.” Two years later plans for a fishing lake, a ‘floating’ cafe on stilts, a BMX track and bee-keeping, horticulture and joinery and construction facilities were approved by the council.

Only the fishing lake – now badly damaged by vandals – has been built and fears were raised at a full meeting of Kirklees Council that the project was under threat.

Mirfield Tory councillor Martyn Bolt told the Huddersfield Town Hall meeting that it seemed the project had “ground to a halt” and that the “fish farm had floundered.”

In reply council leader David Sheard said the scheme had “massive financial problems” and added: “Over the years we have all wanted to be supportive of the Able2 project and the aims it had.

“They were extremely successful in bringing people back into work, but because the probation service has been taken over and changed they have lost funding for various schemes,” he said.

“At the moment they are looking at their finances to see what can be saved. We are doing all we can to save it and I hope we can but I can’t say I am optimistic,” he told the newspaper.