FUNDING to prepare for emergencies such as terrorism and flooding has been slashed by ten per cent in both York and North Yorkshire - despite fears raised by the September 11 attacks.

City of York Council's civil defence budget has been cut from £79,815 in the current financial year to just £71,834 in 2002-03.

North Yorkshire County Council is to get £244,137 - compared with £271,263 this year.

The reductions are the joint biggest for any local authority in the country, under a shake-up of the way the government grants are allocated.

It is even bigger than ten per cent once inflation - which currently stands at 2.1 per cent - is taken into account.

The money is provided by the Cabinet Office to allow council chiefs to prepare contingency plans to deal with any disaster or emergency. It is spent on setting up emergency control headquarters to ensure rescue operations run smoothly.

A Cabinet Office spokesman said councils suffering a funding cut from April had received above-inflation increases in recent years. The amount handed to each local authority was now partly decided on the basis of population, rather than according to the size of the area each covered.

A City of York Council spokeswoman said: "We have only just learned of this reduced grant from the Cabinet Office, which isn't what we expected. We will now have to look at how we can best manage this reduction in resources, in conjunction with our partners, such as the emergency services. We will then be able to see what effect this is going to have on our services."

Updated: 10:21 Saturday, March 30, 2002