As the National Assembly elections loom, your Argus is reporting on each constituency. In the latest of our profiles, HELEN MORGAN looks at Blaenau Gwent.

THE constituency of Blaenau Gwent is one of the most deprived in Wales.

High levels of unemployment and chronic health problems combine to make it an area that needs a great deal of outside help.

Blaenau Gwent has also been struck a major blow since the birth of the Assembly, as the huge tinplate works in Ebbw Vale closed last July marking the end of two centuries of steelmaking in the town.

Around 1,000 jobs - relatively highly paid for the valleys - were lost and many other manufacturing posts in the area have also been axed.

A Masterplan for the future of the vast steelworks site has now been drawn up between the Assembly, the Welsh Development Agency and Blaeanu Gwent county borough council.

Proposals for the site include a post-16 learning campus, a hospital, business units and residential properties.

The Masterplan was presented by the consultants to the Assembly last month and is due to go out for public consultation. Road and rail links from the Ebbw Valley to Newport and Cardiff are set to improve, courtesy of Assembly cash.

The Ebbw Vale passenger railway is set to re-open to Cardiff in 2005 and to Newport in 2008 - and the Argus is fighting a high-profile campaign for the link to open to Newport first.

In January the Assembly administration pledged to pay the £2.44 million annual subsidy needed to run the line, for three years - after the Strategic Rail Authority announced that it would not be providing that funding. It has also provided capital funding for part of the £30 million scheme.

And an Assembly transport grant is paying for work to build the £27 million Cwm Relief Road, which will bypass the village and take heavy traffic out of the main street.

Work is already well under way and the road is due to open in the autumn of next year.

The village of Llanhilleth, near Abertillery, is also feeling the benefits of regeneration.

A multi-million-pound programme began last month - 15 months after the Assembly approved grant aid for the scheme.

A new school to replace the two primaries in the village, with a small sports hall and an Astroturf pitch are being built while the Llanhilleth Institute is being refurbished and a new road and pedestrian bridge are to be constructed.