BURY Racial Equality Council is staring at extinction after a second plea for cash help was turned down.

The REC says it will close within weeks unless a benefactor comes forward, and the wider community would be the loser.

But Bury councillors say they cannot meet the £30,000 shortfall, created when the organisation's parent body, the Commission for Racial Equality, axed its grant.

The REC says that it needs the money to employ staff, which will enable it to receive large grants to tackle discrimination and harassment. This includes £260,000 from the Community Fund, £90,000 from Comic Relief, and £94,000 from the Primary Care Trust.

Sam Cohen, REC secretary, said: "The outlook is bleak. The funding we get from Bury Council will last us a few months. After that, we will not be able to keep the staff and the external grants will not be available.

"The Community Fund has asked us to submit another business plan by the middle of August but we are not hopeful that they are going to approve it. Unless we have money coming in by the end of September, the REC will be forced to close."

Bury Council already gives the REC £25,000 a year, but the ruling executive refused to stump up any more. The matter was "called in" for special debate at Thursday's (July 22) meeting of the resource scrutiny panel, but the panel backed the original decision.

Ms Monaza Luqman, REC chief executive, told members that those external grants were not transferable to the council or any other body. The borough would lose large amounts of money, and the work of the REC, for the sake of a relatively small amount.

But Councillor Wayne Campbell, executive member for resource, said the council gave £1.3 million this year to voluntary groups. Bailing out the REC would effectively open the floodgates for many other groups who were struggling.

In a letter to Bury Council, the CRE said that Bury REC was not awarded a grant because of the quality of its application.