A LOTTERY grant of more than £100,000 will provide training and recreation services for young residents in one of south Durham's most deprived areas.

The Dene Valley Community Partnership will spend the cash running a young people's centre at its One Stop Shop, in Eldon Lane.

The grant, from the Reaching Communities Programme of the Big Lottery, will contribute to staff salaries and running costs over the next five years.

It will enable youth workers to establish training and activity programmes for youngsters in a new base - in an extension to the One Stop Shop's premises, in Eldon Lane High Street.

The extension was built using Neighbourhood Renewal Funding and will also be used for general training and community functions.

Centre manager Allyson Clements said the partnership hoped to increase opportunities for young people and contribute to crime reduction in the area.

She said: "The One Stop Shop is the hub of the community. We have between 600 and 800 people through our doors every month.

"There are no real activities for our young people in this area and our new extension will offer numerous resources and activities which have been suggested by the young people.

"This, in turn, will assist with the reduction in crime levels and the fear of crime in our area and at the same time support young people back into employment and training.

"Our new extension will also increase voluntary and community group activity because we will now have more space available in our existing services."

The partnership, made up of people from the nine former pit communities, which make up the Dene Valley villages, opened the One Stop Shop in a former pub in June 2002 and runs a wide range of activities chosen from a wish list supplied by residents.

It runs a community cafe, a meals-on-wheels delivery service, a launderette, breakfast and after school clubs and summer play schemes as well as a library, office services, and education and training courses.

It is also the base for the successful Dene Valley Community Transport scheme, which hires out minibuses and trains mechanics at its garage nearby