WORSHIPPERS on a Newport estate are spearheading a bid to build a £500,000, eco-friendly community centre.

The new multi-purpose building would provide a base for the New Duffryn Community Church as well as offering the Duffryn estate a meeting-point, youth club and venue for theatrical and musical events.

A management committee headed by Duffryn's curate, Rev David Sutton, is seeking to persuade Newport council to lease them land for the building.

Rev Sutton hopes that the new centre, which would be constructed using the latest green building techniques, might be put up by residents, providing an opportunity to train young people.

"Building the centre ourselves might take twice or even three times as long, but it might form a catalyst for the community," said Rev Sutton.

"It might bring people in the estate together. We would not have problems with vandalism because people on the estate would have ownership.

"They would be able to say, 'My dad helped build that' or 'I helped build that and it taught me the skills that got me a job'."

Rev Sutton arrived on the Duffryn estate in 1997 to lay the groundwork for a new parish and to work with the local community to combat social exclusion and substance abuse. But he is determined that the new centre would serve the needs of the whole community and not just the Church in Wales.

"Ethically, I've got a real problem with a building that's only used on a Sunday morning and a Sunday evening.

"Every building in these days of shortage must be for multi-purpose use." Tredegar Park councillor Garry Brown has enthusiastically backed the plan. "It strikes me as the most forward-looking idea, with the solar panels and recycled materials," he said.

Rev Sutton is confident the construction of an environmentally-sound community centre in a deprived ward like Duffryn would attract funding and commercial sponsorship, provided that local technical colleges and youth training schemes could be tied into the idea.