OKEHAMPTON Youth Hostel is looking to expand the facilities it offers by creating an additional outdoor activity training centre which will be used as an annexe to the building.

Plans have been unveiled to create a 14-bed residential outdoor activity training centre at Bracken Tor Water Treatment Works.

The centre would have self-catering facilities and trainers? accommodation. A full planning application for the scheme was submitted to Dartmoor National Park Authority earlier this month.

Hostel manager John Elson said the proposed centre would be used primarily for older students on outdoor instructor training. He described the scheme as an ?exciting prospect? which made ?nice use of the old water treatment site?.

He said: ?We have a contract with Exeter College to run a lot of instructor training courses.

?We have a team of 12 from the college come in for a week and do the training with a teacher.?

A lot of the training is done at outdoor locations, but Mr Elson said there would also be a fully equipped classroom which could be used for more theory-based learning instead of resorting to using the hostel lounge.

He said these courses were of great financial importance as they ran during the traditionally quiet season from September through to April.

The youth hostel also provides training courses for other educational institutions, including Milton Keynes College and Worcester College.

Mr Elson said the popularity of the youth hostel with primary schools also created its own problems, but he hoped the additional accommodation would also address these.

?At the moment, we are very much schools-based, but because of space, there are times we have to turn members of the public away,? he said