AN INNOVATIVE project launched last year on a Blackpool housing estate has won international acclaim after a visit from two EC countries.

The idea for the Blackpool Integra Project, a pioneering scheme which brings education and training to the residents of Grange Park, is now being transferred to towns in Spain and Austria after representatives were sold on the scheme.

And the scheme, funded by the European Social Fund, has been so successful that it has been shared in a seminar among the partnerships who originally helped to get the project off the ground.

A resource centre has been created in a transformed classroom in Grange Park Junior School for the residents of the estate to learn keyboard skills and IT free of charge.

A total of 97 residents have enrolled on to courses and other disadvantaged areas throughout the country are now replicating the project.

Mick Danson, aged 46, a full time carer for his wife, has achieved NVQs in business administration, computing and book-keeping.

"It is 30 years since I was at school and the last time I learnt anything. I didn't know anything about computers before I came here but now I feel much more confident," he said.