TENBURY has thrown its hat in the ring to become a training camp for Olympic athletes.

Elite British boxers, male and female, preparing for events like the Olympic and Commonwealth games, as well as the World Championships, could be honing their skills at the Bluestone Centre at Bleathwood.

The facility, built by Paddy Brennan, founder of the Tenbury Boxing Club, has been visited by chiefs from the Amateur Boxing Association to see what is on offer.

“We had a very good meeting and I am hopeful that Tenbury could become a centre for the training of these top athletes,” said Mr Brennan.

Boxers would come to the centre for periods of extensive training at a boot camp and it would also provide an opportunity for team building and bonding.

Work is pressing ahead on the centre’s new £50,000 changing room and shower block and with the foundations down it is hoped the building will be completed by the end of next month.

The Bluestone Centre was developed when the Tenbury Boxing Club moved out of town and is used extensively by people from the area both for specific training in the sport and also for general fitness, health and well-being.

Other services available on site include physiotherapy.

As well as being used for sport the centre is also providing a variety of vocational training courses for young people in a bid to give them direction.

Later this month the first batch of 10 young people who are not in work, education or training will begin a special 10-week training programme under the National Open College Network Scheme.

NOCN is a leading credit-based awarding organisation that has been creating opportunities for students and learners for over 25 years.

Qualifications range from entry level, through to level four, and include skills for life such as ‘functional skills’.

NOCN offers almost 400 different qualifications.

The organisation has a tried and trusted track record with learners, educational organisations and employers.

“They will be young people from the Tenbury area are will be learning skills that they will be able to use to get into college or get work,” added Mr Brennan.

His vision of how young people including those with problems can be helped and given a chance has received national recognition and the project has received £25,000 from Bill Longmore the West Mercia police and crime commissioner.

Paddy Brennan, who is a former international boxer and now a successful businessman, believes that helping young people who have not had the best start in life to learn practical skills that open up opportunities is much better than simply locking them away in prisons or young offender institutions that he has described as ‘schools for crime.’