A DRUGS charity boss says 2017 has been a rollercoaster of a year with ‘highs and lows’.

The Bridge Project’s chief executive officer Jon Royle said in his Christmas message to staff and associates it had been a year of change.

He said the high point had been winning a new substance misuse contract in partnership with a national charity to deliver the district’s new dual drugs and alcohol service.

Mr Royle said the new partnership with Change, Grow, Live (CGL), commissioned by Bradford Council, would bring a degree of security to Bridge for the coming five years. Keighley-based Project 6 is also a partner – until now the services have been kept separate.

Despite job losses in the services as part of the changeover, CGL has insisted support for substance misusers will be maintained.

“It’s been a year of change, with a great deal of highs and some lows too,” said Mr Royle predicting 2018 would be an “incredibly exciting time”.

From January 1, The Bridge Project, based in Salem Street, will be delivering structured treatment to drug and alcohol users across the whole of Bradford and Keighley running group work, recovery and volunteering programmes, early intervention and family support services in Bradford.

“This is an incredibly exciting time for us and a real opportunity to take substance misuse services out into the community more through our partnerships with the third sector,” he said but acknowledged it had been “incredibly stressful” for staff knowing there were going to be fewer jobs in the system.

Mr Royle said the low point of 2017 was the closure of its cafe, Forks, in Bradford’s North Parade.

Bridge ran and owned the social enterprise which opened its doors in 2014, giving hospitality and catering training and work experience to people recovering from substance problems.

“While Forks was a successful business in its own right, it was unsustainable as a training facility once it lost its Public Health funding,” said Mr Royle.

But he said the cafe’s trainees had been able to keep up their hospitality and catering training elsewhere.

Mr Royle also appealed in his festive message for organisations in the community wanting to work with them to help service users recover, to get in touch.

He said Bridge had a responsibility to support those groups too.

“Looking ahead I have real confidence in our strengths as an organisation and in the impact our work has on people’s lives,” he said.