Do councils not realise they are making divisions amongst different communities, by awarding loans,grants or any funding to separate immigrant groups.
Funding should go to communities in general and whoever lives in those areas should benefit, not one specific creed or minority.
How much funding have the Poles,Italians,Ukraines etc, who came after the war ever received?
No doubt the PMC will find the money to run the centre once the loan is written off, by the way I am behind with my council tax, will the council please write my debt off, of course they wont.

Good point Truth...including the line about Council Tax (same here!!)

So Sheffield can't afford to keep it's roads and services in good order, but can afford to chuck money away on a centre for a religious group, seems like someones got their priorities wrong here, what next, shut care homes and give the money to the cats shelter.

typical!!

This council certainly gets first prize for giving things away, the airport for a quid, £320k this time, what next?

So the PMC can't afford to pay back the loan, yet the council thinks that they'll be able to invest £37,000 per year in the buildings from 2011 on top of normal running expenses.

I'd be very interested in examining the finances of the PMC. They have been receiving huge sums of money, £30,000pa to pay for core costs, yet they still needed bailing out to prevent them from going under.

This is no way to build a cohesive community, the council are contributing (£320,000!) to the exact opposite.

The PMC is operated at the exclusion of everyone except Pakistani Muslims. It should be closed down, it's remaining assets sold to recover some of the debt and the money invested in a project that the whole community can benefit from.

The recent decision by the Sheffield City Council to write of the £320,000 loan by the Lib-Dems reflects their cosy relationship with some members of the Pakistan Muslim Centre (PMC) management committee members, especially the chair that is a member of Lib-Dem party and stood as a Lib-Dem candidate in Darnall a few years ago. Paul Scriven talks about ‘its valuable work in the community’ are debatable when an organisation's management is not aware of its own history! According to the PMC website history section: “….PMC was established in 1984 when the current building was allocated to the centre by the council through various initiatives…” and it adds: ‘…the centre established itself to become the largest Voluntary BME training organisation in Europe….” I think the website developer needs to find a good research journalist and also needs to do a bit more research and ask the council who have stated correctly: “…PMC was established in the late 1980s and, for a few years in the 1990s…” As for the largest training organisation the council statement, if you read between lines says: “….and, for a few years in the 1990s…” This in fact meant that it was upto around late 1996. After this period, the more competent members of the management committee members resigned or were given the push. I can bear testimony to the fact the PMC was not established in 1984 – due to the fact I worked in the council and I was on the working group that met to develop an ‘Asian community Centre’, a Asian women’s centre and an Asian Youth centre. At this time, it was a pie in the sky and the building or location was not even discussed. “Pakistan Centre” was talked about and later “Muslim” was added. It is interesting to note that many hard-up families are struggling to pay their council tax and many have been forced into bankruptcy by the council. I don’t think the council will write my council tax debt off? No. Yet the far right from the British National Party (BNP) will jump on the band-wag

on to further their ends of manipulating ordinary people to find easy scapegoats within the BME communities who – don’t directly benefit from the PMC – due the to elitist nature of such groups that only benefit around 300 people (who are directors or are relatives of workers in the PMC). Also, the history & identity of PMC is actually Pakistani/Kashmiri & Muslim Centre! Once again, the hegemony in the PMC will deny this actual fact as politics. Well, the writing off the loan of £320.000 had all to do with the political expediency of the party in power, namely Paul Scriven, who does not miss any photo opportunity in the local press and even the PMC members and management for that matter! Come on let us have some honesty and not down-right opportunist band-wagon jumping by the council, BNP and the PMC!
M. H. A. Khan