WORK is pressing ahead on a £3 million skills centre for troubled teenagers in York - starting with a new name.

The centre, on the site of the former Fulford Cross special school in Fulford, will be renamed The Danesgate Pupil Support Centre and provide training for youngsters struggling with conventional academic subjects.

It will take in about 100 children aged from 14 to 19, training them in a range of trades, and also house the city's Pupil Referral Unit (PRU), the centre for excluded children.

Coun Carol Runciman, City of York Council's executive member for education, said the new name signalled a fresh start for the site, which had been identified as a location for the unit for at least the next two years.

The old Fulford Cross School closed in June after battling with dwindling pupil numbers, which had declined from 183 in 1980 to only 15.

In November last year the Government refused to provide £2.6 million for the skills centre, but the council decided to go ahead with the project using its own cash.

If the centre proves successful, other pupils may also be offered the chance to learn vocational skills there.

One of the original possibilities was to turn over the site to housing development before it was earmarked for use as a skills centre.

A meeting of the council's resources and advisory panel on Monday will discuss options for the site after the two years are up, including a possible residential development.

Quentin McDonald, executive member for resources, stressed this was a way for the council to keep its options open, so that if for some reason the site was not suitable for the skills centre, the situation could be reviewed.

Peggy Mellers, the founder of the Friends of Fulford Cross Nature Reserve, said the group remained opposed to any development of the site for housing.

She said: "Our chairman has been in discussions with the PRU principal to see if part of the grounds can be retained as a nature reserve and we are keen to progress that.

"Whatever happens we will stay in existence as a group and monitor the situation and if, in two years' time, the council changes its mind we will reactivate ourselves, as this land is totally unsuitable for building."

Updated: 12:25 Wednesday, September 08, 2004