A Brighton MP has accused councillors of pulling the plug on funds for a community project.

Brighton Kemp Town Labour MP Des Turner has said Brighton and Hove City Council "needs a stick waving at it" after the group's bid for Government money failed.

The issue surfaced when Sue Barnes, co-ordinator for Whitehawk Play and Adventure Group, told a meeting of the estate's crime prevention panel that the council had turned down a request for £9,500 to help fund activities for young people.

Ms Barnes said the council's voluntary organisation grants scheme had given the group a grant since the late Eighties.

She said: "That grant has now been cut and that's a tremendous loss to us."

Each year the group needs a minimum of £70,000 to run its schemes and relies on council funding, which then enables it to attract funds from other bodies such as the lottery and trust funds.

The group does receive money from the council's social services budget but Ms Barnes said the £9,500 was a significant amount which the group relied on.

The council recently sparked an outcry when it delayed announcing grants for more than a month while it changed its grants procedure.

Whitehawk Play and Adventure Group was one of the groups to lose out.

Ms Barnes said the group had been told to apply for money under the Government's New Deal for Communities scheme.

The scheme has £47.2 million to invest in Whitehawk and Moulsecoomb over the next ten years but concerns were raised the council had cut the funding in the hope New Deal would fill the gap.

Mr Turner, chairman of the crime prevention forum, said: "New Deal is new money to fund things in addition to existing schemes, not to replace what other people are putting in. The council has pulled the rug and it needs a stick waving at it."

Ms Barnes said a bid for New Deal money had been turned down, possibly because the schemes were "old" and therefore did not meet the criteria.

An application has now been made to the Government Office for the South-East.