SCIENCE skills are to be boosted by a trailblazing training centre.

The county is strong in bioscience and pharmaceuticals and urgently needs more people with the right skills.

Kent Science Resource Centre, Sittingbourne, aims to do that by plugging a gap between what existing universities and colleges offer and what growing hi-tech firms need from their workforce.

The £2million centre has been created by Sittingbourne Enterprise Hub, the Institute of Biotechnology and industry.

It will teach laboratory technologists at both NVQ and foundation degree level.

Details were unveiled at Kent Science Park, on the outskirts of Sittingbourne and formerly known as Shell Research Centre.

A disused building is to be given a facelift and opened to the first intake of up to 50 students next year.

Tim Bentley, former finance director at Pfizer, the global pharmaceutical company, said it was an exciting development "because we have succeeded in getting industry to back the scheme".

Dr John Dodd, hub director, said the centre would give industry access to a highly skilled workforce.

"Twenty-first century jobs are in biotech and biopharm and we want to encourage more companies to move to Kent."

Centre director Paul Walsh, a successful science entrepreneur, claimed the centre was the first of its kind in the UK.

"Market research has indicated an annual demand for 50 plus technical staff in the bio-industry sector in Kent alone," he said.

Five Year 12 students from Highsted Grammar School, Sittingbourne, attended the launch. They are all studying science and said they would be interested in becoming the centre’s first students.

Stacy Worrall, 17, said: "I think there are interesting careers in science because you continue learning all the time. I’d hate to be in a job that’s the same for most of my life."

They all agreed that having a centre of scientific learning on the doorstep was attractive.

Justin Clapp, the school’s head of biology, has been working on the project.

"Students who successfully complete their course here should walk straight into a job," he said.