A NEW training centre in Selby will be formally opened next month.

York Training Centre's Selby outpost is already operating in its new premises in the Ousegate Business Centre and just moved in with it is the Selby Business Advice Centre.

But now all systems are go for a full-scale training and job searching operation to help employers with recruitment and training needs.

The new centre has moved from Brook Street, Selby, which was needed for new development. The new base has been acquired on a three-year lease.

York Training Centre is a commercially-independent part of the City of York Council, but Selby District Council also invested in the project, which involved a £36,000 revamp of the building.

Margaret Brown, business development officer for the York Training Centre, part of the York economic development group in George Hudson Street, said: "Our Selby base will be better equipped and we will have better co-ordination with the town's business community given that the Selby Business Advice Centre and a Business Link service will be under the same roof.

"The whole idea will be to either get people into work or to improve their career opportunities and with relatively high unemployment in Selby our work will be increasingly vital."

On Monday, May 10, Selby MP John Grogan will formally open the centre, which will have specialist training advisers for employers as well as an array of computers and other training equipment.

Mrs Brown said: "As we are in a rural area we will be providing a wheels-to-work programme so that employees in rural areas can hire mopeds through us at a highly-subsidised rate of just £2.50 a week for up to six months in order to get to work."

Updated: 10:12 Tuesday, April 20, 2004