WILLITON'S purpose-built new Somerset Skills and Learning Centre is offering a free computer and internet course to celebrate its official reopening next month.

The centre will be sharing its new premises with Williton's register office and will boast two teaching rooms and courses ranging from floristry and textiles to Spanish, line-dancing and sugarcraft.

Staff are also planning to put a new state-of-the-art computer suite to good use by offering a free, three week course to help people get started on computers and the internet.

The centre will officially open on Monday, May 9, from 10am to 7pm and local people will be able to make the most of a host of a free taster sessions throughout the day.

Somerset Skills and Learning area administration and finance officer Adrian Ludlam said: "Our learners were very disappointed when the centre closed last year.

"We have been able to continue to provide some courses using external venues over the past year, but it is going to be great to get back into our own place again.

"We are very excited about having a physical presence once again in Williton."

The new centre and register office form part of a bigger development on The Bury on the edge of Williton, which also includes a new Croft House residential home.

The purpose-built 65-bed residential home will replace the village's existing 41-bed home, which is owned by Somerset Care, and will include a dedicated unit for dementia patients.

Andrew Larpent, chief executive of Somerset Care, said it had taken a decade of partnership working with Somerset County Council and West Somerset Council to get the scheme to fruition.

He said Somerset Care was facing "unprecedented demand" for beds for people with dementia and that facilities at the existing home were "unsuitable and in urgent need of replacement".

The site, which lies between Bank Street and Bridge Street, lies outside Williton's development limits and the planning application had to be approved by the Secretary of State before work could begin on the project last year.

Further information about the courses on offer at the new-look Somerset Skills and Learning Centre is available by telephoning 0845 6880488.