WORK will start today on a £4m training and housing centre to bring fresh hope to war veterans who have fallen on hard times.

The £4m Beacon project will be built at Europe’s biggest Army base, in Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire.

The centre will be aimed at single exservicemen and women who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

Staff will help veterans to find employment and permanent housing.

As well as providing temporary accommodation for 31 veterans, it will offer access to IT and training facilities.

An on-site training bakery will be among the centre’s facilities, as well as an audio and video studio.

Veterans Minister Kevan Jones, the MP for North Durham, will cut the first turf on the site, in Marne Road, this morning.

The centre will be run by the English Churches Housing Group (ECHG).

ECHG managing director Derek Caren said: “This centre will offer services worthy of the veterans it will work with and will be focused on making sure they are able to make a successful leap back into civilian life once they leave the Armed Forces.”

ECHG already has centres for veterans at Aldershot Garrison, in Hampshire, and a smaller centre in Richmond, North Yorkshire, known as The Galleries.

Reece Dinsdale, a veteran of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, left the Army last year having served for six years. The 22-year-old said: “I was living rough for a while. I got into the Galleries, and the help I got was brilliant – I could not have asked for any better.

“They helped me adjust to civilian life.”

He is now studying courses to improve his English and maths.

Michael Dueren, 53, left the RAF Regiment in 1996 after tours of the Gulf, Northern Ireland and The Falklands.

He was also homeless when he secured a place at The Galleries, and said: “They pointed me in the right direction for medical help, financial advice and counseling.”

Twelve affordable family homes will be built next to the centre, with veterans learning construction skills on site.

Other groups involved in the project include the MoD, and the Homes and Communities Agency. The Church Housing Trust will raise charitable funds to furnish the centre, while Richmondshire District Council and North Yorkshire County Council will also be involved.