IN NG7 – one of the UK's most deprived areas – there are people dedicated to improving the area.

They work hard to raise the aspirations and standard of life and to increase the opportunities available.

The Neighbourhood Development Company (NDC), formerly New Deal for Communities, was set up in 2001 with £55m worth of public money to help Radford and Hyson Green. But concerns have been raised about funding – the latest debacle at the troubled regeneration scheme.

Community groups had been invited to apply for funding by former interim chief executive, Stephen Lord, who left last month. But now the groups have been told it is unlikely that any new revenue or capital funding will be approved.

Mr Lord was appointed to help recruit a new board after the previous one was "refreshed" following a damning Government report.

New interim chief executive, Joan Toovey, hopes to provide greater transparency to regain the community's trust.

But she has been unable to explain why Mr Lord was inviting funding bids when the current financial position does not allow for any new projects to be funded.

Ms Toovey said: "We are trying to get to the bottom of the misunderstanding or misinformation. It's quite hard to explain why [myself and Mr Lord] have such different levels of funding available."

"I have not seen any documentation of what figures Stephen Lord had [of money available to spend]; a figure when I arrived was £1.4m, but I believe he was talking about more than £2m."

The Post understands that under Mr Lord's tenure, up to £2.4m was available for new projects in the last 18 months.

Jerry Thomas, Hyson Green Youth Club manager, said: "We have been having discussions with NDC for almost a year.

"We met NDC staff to see if we could come into the funding process. Stephen Lord left it up to staff to organise this process and I met those staff a number of times.

"We were asked to put a proposal together and there were meetings when we discussed financial figures. We bid for capital funding of approximately £700,000 and we wanted other revenue support for our mentoring project and football teams.

"We wanted the capital funding for our sports barn. There was a fire about ten years ago and no money has come to repair it.

"I received a letter on October 23 explaining that we were not going to get the money. I wanted to find out what was going on. We got together with the other organisations and we were all confused. We wrote to NDC asking for transparency and an explanation – we sent copies of this letter to GOEM and Jane Todd at the city council.

"We had got planners and architects in to upgrade a previous feasibility study on the sports barn when we thought we were going to receive the funding.

"This has an effect on our young people, they think they are not worth it and that's why no money is ever spent on the centre.

"How can one chief executive say there is X amount of money available and the position change so quickly?"

Leslie Davis, of education provider and employment service, Learn, said: "I was told by an NDC employee that there was funding available and I was encouraged to put in a proposal. What was made known to me was that they needed to spend £2.3m by the end of March 2009. My proposal was for a round of small grants to benefit smaller organisations."

Mr Lord was unavailable for comment.

michael.greenwell@nottinghameveningpost.co.uk