The Leader of the Lancaster City Council has sent the following email to a number of people who have written in to support The Dukes:

"I am happy to be able to inform you that there are no proposed cuts to the Dukes grant in the draft budget. You may be referring to a reduction in the grant that was made in March and agreed at budget council. This had an effect for 2009-10 and subsequent years. But this happened sometime ago. There has been no recent decision."

You should know that:

The first notification we received of our projected grant for 2010/11 came by letter on 25th October, 2009, in a letter from the Leader himself. Whichever way you look at this, the City Council are intending to cut The Dukes funding from £134,100 this year to £114,400 next year. The City Council are currently running a consultation headlined “How should Lancaster City Council spend its 2010/11 budget?”  The City Council wants your input – please don’t think there is no problem here, and do continue to encourage people to make their voice heard