FIVE young people have secured employment with community regeneration charity Groundwork North East.

Dylan Constantine, 17, Robbie Harris, 20, Brandon Thompson, 20, Harry Atkins, 18, and Ben Taylor, 19, who were formerly not in education, employment or training have been taken on as part of the charity's County Durham Environmental Task Force.

This comes thanks to funding from Groundwork North East and Durham County Council.

All five were supported through the council’s programme DurhamWorks, through which the council’s direct services team and the charity offer 16 to 24-year-olds a year of fulltime paid work to gain skills and experience to find jobs.

They will be employed by Groundwork to work with in parks, woodland and church yards cutting grass, hedges, repairing fences and tidying up paths and will receive vocational training throughout their employment.