A MULTI-MILLION blueprint for tackling deprivation problems in Redcar and Cleveland has been drawn up.

The Redcar and Cleveland Partnership, made up of more than 30 public, private and voluntary organisations, will work on three areas during a three-year period.

The Neighbourhood Renewal Programme will focus on creating more jobs, improving crime-fighting and tackling drug problems throughout the borough.

The scheme will cost £7.8m and will be financed from Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council's allocation from the Government's Neighbourhood Renewal Fund.

The partnership will concentrate on how to bring local people back to the employment market and into the jobs that the scheme is aimimg to create.

Graham Brownlee, the partnership's chair of the Neighbourhood Renewal and Social Inclusion Group, said: "The fund gives us the opportunity to take practical action to achieve a better quality of life in Redcar and Cleveland.

"The partnership is aiming to commission major initiatives, which will especially improve employment, health and community safety and have a lasting effect in areas where it matters most.

"We are ambitious about the fund and want to pay for work which will have a noticeable effect way beyond the three years of the programme."

Councillor David Walsh, leader of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, said he believed the project was "exciting and innovative".

He said: "We are also committed, in partnership with Cleveland Police, to developing a community security programme.

"And we want to encourage the creation of new schemes to tackle the drugs menace.