I WONDER how many readers have paid a visit to St Barnabas Church, Dartmouth lately? Because if they haven't, there is a surprise awaiting them.

Some will remember the church lay dormant for many years until Bob Trevatt took it over in 1979.

In 2003, South Hams Council, Signpost Housing and other public bodies injected £3million into a renovation project.

Training for Life charity was involved in the conversion of the back of the church into flats for the homeless and unemployed and agreed to sponsor a social enterprise restaurant, modelled on its celebrated counterpart, the Hoxton Apprentice.

This London restaurant has offered opportunities to more than 150 unemployed young people since 2005, 70 per cent of whom have subsequently obtained jobs in top restaurants, as well as international hospitality groups, such as the Hilton, Whitbread, the Compass Group and even Buckingham Palace.

The charity has a considerable range of innovations to its credit; a gym in Lambeth to get unemployed fit and motivated; in Westminster, a centre training and equipping disabled people for employment, and now they are considering opening an apprentice hotel in West London.

Can this charity transfer its magic 250 miles from London to Dartmouth?

St Barnabas Church is following the simple formula of investing in the long-term young unemployed, getting them off the streets, teaching them life skills and weaning them off benefits.

In this way it hopes with careful supervision and training not available in an ordinary commercial enterprise, unfulfilled youngsters will be motivated to take on a permanent job.

St Barnabas now trumpets a first class bar and restaurant and soon a delicatessen as well, with Prue Leith, the internationally-acclaimed restaurateur, as one of its mentors.

I sampled the cuisine and enjoyed the £10 two-course lunch. There are 95 places on two tiers, with modern design and furniture, and splendid views over the Dart.

I cannot believe St Barnabas won't soon be a sell-out.

Is there a snag? While there are now 10 flats for the homeless and a training restaurant, there are still only four apprentices dishing out the goodies and six of the flats remain empty.

Are four apprentices enough to justify the considerable daily costs of employing a dozen or so staff (who are not apprentices) and who pays the talented Italian chef, Clemente Marianna, to whisk up eggs, twist spaghetti and make risotto?

The Dartmouth Apprentice, barely three months old, is currently spending more than it is making and the project has not been helped by a crazy bureaucratic rule that flats can only be occupied by the homeless from South Hams and not from anywhere else because the building is in South Hams.

That needs to be put right so the Torbay and Teignmouth can feed in their unemployed young people as well.

The project's success depends on two things:

1 Local people embracing this enterprise, sampling the cuisine and helping the Dartmouth apprentices tackle real-life situations.

2 The need to attract more apprentices and make better use of the empty homeless accommodation.

It is a well known fact many of our hotels and restaurants in South Devon keep open thanks to young people from other European countries prepared to work there, but wouldn't it be marvellous if we managed to train sufficient numbers of our own youngsters at the Dartmouth Apprentice so they could find jobs locally in the hospitality industry.

In this way they could re-pay some of the investment which has been made available to them.

I was impressed by the apprentices I met, three boys and a girl. I was also impressed by the tasteful conversion of St Barnabas and equally enthused by the quality of staff employed by Training for Life.

For those who say it is all too costly and taxpayers' money should not be spent on this kind of enterprise, let me say this: the restaurant is not under-cutting other local facilities, although it is true the conversion of St Barnabas Church could never have taken place without an injection of public funds.

What is significant and must not be overlooked is those who are long-term unemployed (the apprentices) have inevitably had an unhappy past history and were not functioning in society in the past except as casualties.

So here is an opportunity to give young people who have lost their way a chance to win their respect back and find their own personal fulfilment.

The initial investment was substantial, but it would have been far more costly to keep unemployed youth permanently on benefits, and foster a culture where they would always expect to 'get' from society rather than to 'give' to it.

Training for Life has got an uncanny way of succeeding with those on whom other agencies have despaired, thus ensuring they 'opt into' society rather than 'opting out'.