A funding initiative has been launched in Leeds to restore two community services.

A voluntary levy of £3 per month is to be added to each householders’ synagogue fees to fund a post at Leeds Jewish Initiative, which provided social and educational activities for the 18-to-35s, until its closure last month. The extra funding will also pay for a community development officer, left vacant when Neil Clarke left in September.

Addressing the 35 delegates at Leeds Representative Council meeting on Sunday, Robert Bartfield said that the scheme has the support of the city’s synagogues. “We will start to receive the benefit of the levy from January. I calculate that the voluntary contributions will be sufficient to reinstate the work which recently had to be put on hold due to lack of funding.”

Council president Sue Dorsey told the 35 delegates at the Marjorie and Arnold Ziff Centre: “We are asking the community to take financial responsibilty for its own future.”