PEACE campaigner Colin Parry has enlisted the help of Northern Ireland secretary Mo Mowlam in his bid to set up a student exchange centre in Warrington.

Mr Parry and his wife Wendy were at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre at the weekend for discussions on Northern Ireland, one year after the IRA's bombing of Manchester.

The couple were specially invited to talk with the Northern Ireland secretary and Mr Parry raised the issue of his hopes of establishing the £1 million residential centre.

Mr Parry said: "We spoke to Mo Mowlem and she was very understanding and interested in what we want to do.

"She wasn't able to offer us anything in terms of funding, which was disappointing but not unexpected. But she did say that she might be able to help us in other ways, such as contacting other people about the centre."

A site next to St Gregory's RC High School in Cromwell Avenue, Great Sankey, has been earmarked for the centre, but funding the project remains a huge task.

Mr Parry said: "It's going to cost a minimum of £1 million and the task of raising that money begins in earnest from now.

"We have put together a promotional video which we are going to send to businesses throughout the town to try to persuade them to help us.

"At the moment we send students to Northern Ireland with the Tim Parry Scholarship, which is enormously beneficial, but we are not able to do return visits.

"If we had this residential centre in Warrington we would be able to organise exchange visits from anywhere, though obviously there would be an emphasis on Northern Ireland."

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