A NEW Chef School is aiming to attract scores of unemployed young people into Bournemouth’s hospitality industry.

The initiative is intended to meet a shortage of chefs in the resort.

The Chef School, to be launched Monday, October 6, is a partnership between South West Regional Assessment Centre (SWRAC) and Premier Inn Bournemouth and is being promoted by the town’s National Coastal Tourism Academy.

Thirty recruits will join an eight-week practical course created by SWRAC, learning their skills in Premier Inn’s kitchen. They will be employed at the end of the course by Premier Inn and other local hotels and restaurants. The school will recruit around 30 long-term unemployed people each quarter.

Ed Pyke, cluster general manager for Premier Inn, said: “Lack of chefs has been a perennial problem in Bournemouth and something I had been talking loudly about for some time so I was thrilled when SWRAC suggested this new course, providing a pathway for unemployed people to embark on a career as a chef and solving an industry headache in one hit.”

Nigel Reeve, hospitality tutor at SWRAC, said: “I am tremendously proud to have created this course in partnership with Premier Inn. It should become a great success. The eight-week course is immensely practical, providing kitchen skills that will prove an asset in any busy kitchen. Offering trainees a work placement at the end is a huge motivation. We hope this will just be the start of an initiative that could be taken nationwide.”

National Coastal Tourism Academy director Samantha Richardson said: “Here is an example of a very real industry issue being tackled head-on. Chefs are critical to the success of hotels and restaurants, offering enormous opportunities for these new recruits to rise to the very top of an exciting industry.”