OVER 50 jobs could be created for disabled people in East Lancashire following a £500,000 windfall.

The Trinity Community Partnership has received the cash from the European Social Fund and the Lancashire Learning and Skills Council.

The partnership, based at the Trinity Youth and Community Centre, Clitheroe, is one of the North West's leading development trusts for the disabled and unemployed.

A grant of £112,072 has been awarded by the European Union to help the partnership improve the quality of its community-based projects. It works with organisations, including Clitheroe The Future, which is spearheading the drive for a new multi-purpose arts centre in the town; the Ribble Valley Dyslexia Group and the Ribble Valley Visually Impaired Group.

A further European grant of £237,970 will help the partnership's Jigsaw Group develop further training and employment opportunities for disabled people in the Ribble Valley, Hyndburn and Rossendale, through the introduction of new community businesses and continued involvement with the Government's New Deal for Disabled People programme.

The Jigsaw Group already supports the development of community businesses in Clitheroe, Accrington and Haslingden, and operates the New Deal programme in East Lancashire, Lancaster and Wyre. The partnership's mental health development programme, Jigsaw Prospects, has received £84,088 from the Lancashire Learning and Skills Council and £68,799 from the European Social Fund to offer confidence-building and employment skills workshops to the mentally ill.

Eli Taylor, the partnership's finance development manager, said she was delighted with the windfall and confident that over 50 jobs would be created for disabled people over the next 18 months as a result.