SOME of Gwent's unemployed are to be trained in engineering during the regeneration of the former Corus site in Ebbw Vale.

The £3.5m contract for preparation works at the site was awarded to Hirwaun-based Walters. It included a social clause specifying jobless locals must be hired.

Ten people will learn engineering skills as they help reshape the 200-acre Westgate section of the site ready for the construction of the county's new community hospital. It is hoped the ten-month project will improve their employment prospects for the future.

The scheme is likely to be copied in public projects across Britain if, as expected, it proves a success, says Blaenau Gwent council leader John Hopkins.

He said: "We are using this early phase of the project as a test bed to explore how we can gain extra benefits for the community. "This could deliver a whole range of new and much-needed skills and open up employment opportunities for a significant number of local job-seekers."

In total £15 million of reclamation work will take place by 2008 to prepare the site for redevelopment.

Approximately £150 million is to be invested in creating a community with new housing, a primary school, a new higher education campus and a new railway station.

It is expected that 1,500 people will be eventually be employed at the former steelworks site, which closed four years ago with the loss of almost 800 jobs.