POTTERY specialist Jim Shaw is making contact with pottery enthusiasts from around the world, as well as collectors closer to home, thanks to his new website.

He is one of 70 people benefiting from a new training suite set up at Teesside Tertiary College and equipped by UK Steel Enterprise with a £13,000 grant from its community support fund.

The courses on web construction and image handling meant that Mr Shaw, who lives in Middlesbrough and runs Appleton Antiques, will be able to service the website himself to boost his business further.

There are courses aimed at helping the unemployed into work and enabling people to set up or develop their own business.

To his surprise, Mr Shaw's website - www.appletonantiques. co.uk - has brought inquiries from as afield as Australia and Canada

It has also put him in touch with Dorman Museum, in Middlesbrough, which contacted him with a view to buying some of the Middlesbrough-made Linthorpe pottery he owns, to add to its collection.