A £250,000 training and childcare facility was officially opened in east Durham yesterday.

The Bracken Hill Education Centre and Positive Steps Day Nursery was established on Peterlee's Bracken Hill Park to help local people gain employment while meeting the demand for quality childcare.

Led by Durham County Council, the project is supported by partners including East Durham and Houghall Community College, Easington District Council and Easington Action Team for Jobs.

With a capacity for 75 youngsters, the nursery is aimed at those whose parents work on the business park or elsewhere in east Durham.

Opening from 7am to 7pm, Monday to Friday, it provides a school-run service, taking children aged up to eight to school and collecting them in the afternoon.

The nursery provides the children with a meal and engages them in a curriculum-based activity before their parents collect them.

Younger children can be left at the centre any time during opening hours, providing greater flexibility for parents who work at call centres, where shift work is involved.

In addition to offering childcare, the centre runs a three-week call centre training programme and a two-year NVQ childcare early years training course.

Aimed at helping people to secure jobs, the call centre programme teaches skills such as typing, assertiveness, interview techniques and basic skills, and includes presentations and visits.

The childcare course comprises two-and-a-half days of learning and two days' work placement.

Both schemes are free for the unemployed and include lunch and free transport to and from Peterlee town centre.

Yesterday, the centre, funded by the Single Regeneration Programme, European Regional Development Fund, and Easington Local Strategic Partnership, was launched by Durham county councillor Norman Wade and Easington District Council chairman Alan Fenwick.

Councillor Fenwick said: "Bracken Hill is a very successful business park. It has grown considerably in the past five years to provide almost 4,000 jobs for the area.

"This development incorporates a significant and high level of childcare, which can free up parents so that they can enter employment or undertake training."

For details about the call centre course, contact 0191-586 3355, and for information about the NVQ, contact 0191-518 2000