EVESHAM'S specialist family planning clinic for young people is to have more investment after proving extremely popular.

Sheena Stewart, Worcestershire's sexual health and teenage pregnancy co-ordinator, said the county had been allocated money to help improve teenage health and some of this would be allocated to the Merstow Green centre.

The clinic, set up in February for young people under 25, has been running on Saturdays between 10.30am and noon. It was organised as part of an on-going campaign to cut high levels of teen pregnancies in parts of the Vale.

Mrs Stewart said: "The demand for this kind of sexual health clinic in the Vale is definitely there. We have had a lot of people using it and we are now hoping to expand the range of things we can do in here."

Teenage pregnancies are an area highlighted in the annual report of Worcestershire's director of public health, Dr Brian McCloskey.

Evesham has been a cause for concern in this area over the past few years. In 1996, Pinvin and Evesham West wards had conception rates of more than 50 per 1,000 females aged 10 to 19 compared to a Worcestershire average of 28.

The latest figures show 201 conceptions to people under 18 between 1995 and 1997 in Wychavon.

The report also shows people living in Wychavon are at the most risk of dying from coronary heart disease.

Wychavon has the highest average deaths from heart disease per year from 1995 to 1999. The average for the district is 249 annually compared with less than 200 in all other Worcestershire districts, apart from Wyre Forest.