BOLTON’S first UKIP councillor used his maiden speech to the council to blast the ruling Labour party’s policy of spending more money in deprived areas as a ‘failure’.

Cllr Paul Richardson, who represents Little Lever, spoke out against the allocation of funding across Bolton’s 20 wards, arguing that years of work to improve living standards in Bolton’s poorest areas have had little or no effect.

Leading Labour councillors strongly denied his statement and accused Cllr Richardson of being ‘further right than the Tories’.

In his speech, Cllr Richardson pointed to figures from the Indices of Deprivation from 2000 to 2010, which he says shows relative deprivation in areas such as Rumworth, Farnworth, Halliwell and Great Lever has increased, despite the wards receiving a greater level of funding than more affluent parts of Bolton.

He added: “This council believe it or not has a ‘philosophy’. In practice at every opportunity the allocation of monies is skewed for the purpose of ‘narrowing the gap, and particularly those in our most deprived communities’.

“Following the recent and ongoing cuts it is now intended to ‘increase the level of targeting bases on the greatest level of need deprivation’.

“All very laudable but the problem is that it hasn’t and it doesn’t work.”

He added: “The millions of pounds have solved nothing.

“If any organisation which has ploughed such millions into a project over 14 years reaches the point when it is clear that the opposite result than that which was intended has been achieve, then that organisation must seriously consider drawing the line under the project and find a different method of approach.

“I believe we have now reached that point.”

Labour councillor Ebrahim Adia, Executive Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Resources, said Cllr Richardson’s ‘inexperience’ as a councillor meant he had missed the point.

The council uses a range of indicators to examine the levels of deprivation, he said, and has reduced the gap in life expectancy and crime rate between the most affluent and poorest areas, teenager pregnancy rates and increased the educational attainment of children on free school meals.

“We have done extremely well in narrowing the gap in Bolton”, Cllr Adia added.

“This policy comes from a party that is to the right of the Tories.

“I want to tell the people of Bolton that UKIP is no friend of the people who live in the poorest areas of Bolton who are likely to vote for them.

“They will abandon you at the first opportunity. This is a case and point today.

“I can inform you we have no intention of abandoning our policy in narrowing the gap.”