MP's anger that fund is used for £80,000 horse show

The unitary council - which is under-fire for closing old people's day centres, putting up charges and cutting hundreds of jobs to balance the books - hopes to attract some of the UK's leading riders to the prestigious equestrian competition in July. It has allocated £80,000 to plan and organise the horse trials event, comprising dressage and show jumping elements, to be held at Burgham near Felton.

Regeneration bosses say they hope to attract up to 5,000 visitors to the event and have seen it included on the British Show Jumping calendar of major events.

Mr Campbell's anger at the spending has been heightened by the fact that the money is coming from the Government's Working Neighbourhoods Fund (WNF), which was set up to tackle unemployment and low levels of skills and enterprise in the most disadvantaged parts of the country.

News of the equestrian event comes as the Liberal Democrat-led council is proposing to put council tax bills up by 2.8% in April, axe hundreds more council posts and cut spending on services for the elderly by £5.8m as part of ongoing budget reductions and savings.

Mr Campbell said: "We are facing one of the most serious situations for years and we have the Lib Dems spending valuable resources on a weekend show jumping event. I know there are many horse lovers, and that it is important to help rural communities, but what will this actually do?

"It is a weekend out for toffs and the people of Blyth Valley and Wansbeck are going to see money which could support their voluntary groups, like the resource centre and disabled forum in Blyth, going to making sure the rich and the so-called elite of the county have a good weekend out.

"I believe the WNF money, which I have lobbied for along with other MPs, should be spent where it does most good, and not wasted on a toffs' weekend out.

"How can the leadership at County Hall sit there while they are cutting money from the elderly and the disabled and sanction such waste as this?"

Last night Andy Dean, head of regeneration at the county council, said more than £5m in WNF funding had been allocated over the last two years to 'employability' projects. This included £2m to the voluntary and community sector to target hard-to-reach groups and £800,000 towards an EU-funded project supporting enterprise development across Northumberland.

"The £80,000 funding towards this event is providing support to develop and sustain jobs in the equine sector, as well as stimulating local business for the visitor economy. We aim to recoup this investment in future years.

"The purpose of the proposal is to bring a high-profile event to Northumberland. This will have a dramatic impact on visitor numbers and visitor spend in the county. For example, a similar event elsewhere in the country generated 5,000 bed nights and visitor spend of £424,000. We expect to at least match these figures.

"If the event is successful this year, we hope to see it develop further in future years. Income and expenditure projections demonstrate that the event is likely to make a significant surplus, in excess of £100,000 per annum."