A programme of cuts to funding for community groups has been attacked as “racist” during a bad-tempered meeting at Watford Borough Council.

Opposition Labour councillors made the accusation at a call-in meeting yesterday to scrutinise the decision to axe £260,000 from 13 groups.

The cuts, which were agreed by the council’s Liberal Democrat cabinet earlier this month, completely ended funding to three groups, the Watford Muslim Community Project, the Watford African Caribbean Association and Watford’s multicultural community centre.

However Watford’s directly elected mayor, Dorothy Thornhill, made a robust defense of the decision to cut the grants, saying it was unfair that the council only gave cash to a few select groups who had struck historic agreements.

The decision was called in by two Labour and a Green councillor.

At the meeting, representatives from the worst affected groups were given the opportunity to address councillors on the overview and scrutiny committee, who were discussing the cuts.

Clive Saunders, a trustee of the African Caribbean Association, said news it was losing all it funding had come as a complete shock to the organisation He said: “We were led to believe throughout this process that we were likely to see a 10 per cent cut in our funding. We prepared for that and possibly a bit more.

“We were flabbergasted when we were told the funding was to completely cease.”

Mr Saunders also said he took exception at being labeled a single interest group by the council, arguing the organisation worked with people of all backgrounds.

Sharifa Chaudry, the chair of the multicultural community centre said she was unhappy with the assessment council officers had carried out before the funding was cut.

She said: “It makes us feel that the decision was already made that three associations would have their funding ceased.

“We were made to feel marginalised, unprofessional and a big burden on the council.”

Following representations from the groups who lost their funding Mayor Thornhill made a combative defence of the decision to cut the grants.

She said she had heard words like justice and fairness used by those attacking the cuts but that she felt the real injustice was that the council funded a select few groups in the town.

“The only unfairness is that these groups have had 30 years of funding and the majority of groups in the town don’t,” she said.

Mayor Thornhill defended the council’s decision to withdraw funding from single interest organisations saying it was divisive to set groups against each other in the town.

Political tensions over the cuts boiled over later in the discussion when the leader of the Labour group, Jagtar Singh Dhindsa, called the process “racist” as the three groups losing funding were ethnic minority groups.

He said: “Funding is being cut to three ethnic groups; I feel there is racism there.”

Mayor Thornhill responded: “I think you would love it to be about racism, I think you thrive on it.”

In the end the committee overwhelming voted by seven councillors to one to reject the motion to send the cuts decision back to the executive.