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Thirty neighbourhood warden jobs in the city are to be deleted and 23 of the team re-deployed as community environmental officers.

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The council is blaming the shake-up on Government funding cuts, as a previous £400,000 grant has now dried up.

But residents of New Wortley and Whinmoor fear that removing their wardens now, after they had built up trust with the community over years, would be a backward step.

John Barber, secretary of New Wortley Residents' Association, who is campaigning alongside local teenagers to save its two local wardens, told Wortley Today: "The biggest fear is that if we don't have the wardens, things will go back to how they were.

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"This place used to be like Beirut.

"People were blowing up caravans and smashing car windows but we have done so much round here with the support of the wardens.

"We can't say 'it's OK now, we don't need them any more'.

"A few troublemakers have already more or less told us they can't wait for them to go because they can do what they like."

But Leeds's neighbourhoods chief, Coun Les Carter, said: "It would be nonsense to suggest that there would be chaos on the streets due to the reduction of seven wardens. The council has gone down the route of protecting all wards in the city by contributing towards the employment of 172 police communtiy support officers – an average of five per ward –which has led to a huge reduction in crime.

"Whilst I understand that (the wardens] have been popular in the areas where they operate, we've been unable to cover all the Government's funding cuts."