A PIONEERING Christian centre which helps the homeless and drug users has been given a grant boost of more than £60,000.

The Blackburn-based charity THOMAS -- Those On The Margins Of Society -- has secured £61,500 to help it fund a scheme aimed at getting drug-addicted prisoners back on the straight and narrow.

Despite Blackburn MP Jack Straw being so impressed with THOMAS that he said every town should have a similar scheme, Blackburn with Darwen Council bosses decided to cut their annual grant to the project earlier this year, saying their cash had run out.

Initial fears that this would lead to support worker posts being lost and fewer people helped were allayed when a Home Office grant of around £140,000 over three years was awarded to THOMAS.

The latest allocation of money comes from the council's new Single Regeneration Budget -- Government-awarded cash -- scheme.

THOMAS was set up six years ago by Father Jim McCartney, priest at St Anne's Church, Prince's Street, Blackburn., to help drug users and the "socially excluded."

Dozens of people have been helped rebuild their lives since, with one former drug user even going on to land a place at Cambridge University.

Now the new project aims to help local people who have become trapped in a circle of criminal activity and drug-taking.

Father Jim said: "The project will focus on mentoring the ex-offender with the aim of breaking the cycle of reoffending.

"It may be that they want to come in to our rehabilitation centre and we will help them in the same way we already help other people.

"Or it might be that they want to settle in a new town because location can often be a factor into slipping into reoffending."