PEOPLE living in rural communities in Worcestershire and Herefordshire will once again be able to take computer courses in their village halls.

Holme Lacy College, part of the Pershore Group of Colleges, is offering specialist training for small rural businesses, thanks to a newly-refitted minibus and additional funding to subsidise the courses.

The courses include beginner IT, intermediate IT, computerised farm record-keeping, computerised farm book-keeping and using IT to promote rural business.

"Funding's been a major problem this autumn," said projects co-ordinator Cathy Meredith.

"Running courses in village halls is very expensive. Our aim is to provide training at a minimal cost to the students.

"In the wake of foot-and-mouth disease, this is especially important to small rural businesses, including farmers.

"Barclays Bank came up with £2,700 from its foot-and-mouth rural recovery fund, while college workshop staff solved the transport problems by re-fitting the minibus to securely store and transport the IT equipment. We're very grateful to Barclays Bank for subsidising these courses. It's very frustrating when you know that there are people out there desperate for help with IT and we can't run courses due to lack of funding," said trainer Sue Nicholson.

Anyone interested in the courses can contact the college on 01432 870316.