A NEW £500,000 high-tech learning centre could be created on a Malvern industrial estate.

It will use state-of-the-art technology to help train workers, who in turn will help keep the district's businesses competitive.

If planning permission is granted, the learning centre will open in September at Byre Court, on Sandy's Lane, on the Enigma Business Park.

It will be one of three centres - the others are in Hereford and Redditch - being developed as part of a £4.6 million project funded by Advantage West Midlands to boost manufacturing skills.

Each will be equipped for video conferencing, so that teachers can interact with all three centres at once.

The Malvern learning centre will have e-learning facilities for up to 20 people at a time, as well as seminar rooms.

Malvern Hills College will provide much of the training, but other organisations including University College Worcester will also be involved.

Sharon Gray, director of strategic planning at the Learning and Skills Council Herefordshire and Worcestershire, which spearheaded the bid for funding, said the new centre would offer teaching in areas focused specifically on employers' needs.

"This has been done on the back of research and consultation with employers," she said. "It's not just something we've thought up and hoped it will work."

Rather than having to send their staff away for a day or week for training, bosses will be able to send them to the cente for a couple of hours a week. Costs should also be kept low through subsidies.

Although aimed primarily at Enigma Park businesses, the centre will be open to other local manufacturing firms.

Mrs Gray said improving skills among production and manufacturing workers would be crucial to the area's economic prosperity in future years as both areas are predicted to expand.