Yorkshire Water is reintroducing apprenticeship schemes at sites across the region - more than ten years after phasing them out.

From September, the Bradford-based firm will be taking on 14 apprentices, aged between 16 and 19, for its clean water and waste water divisions.

Based at works in Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield, Hull, Huddersfield and York, the trainees will work towards a National Vocational Qualification while learning new skills in the workplace.

The apprenticeships are expected to take two years to complete, with each participant then moving on to full-time posts in their chosen area.

The company stopped its apprenticeship programme at the end of the 1980s, when it was replaced by government backed Youth Opportunity and Training Schemes.

Now they're switching back to the traditional way "because it works better."

Managing director, Kevin Whiteman, said: "I'm a great advocate of apprenticeship schemes and I'm delighted they are being reintroduced.

"Once upon a time almost everyone started their working life in a firm as an apprentice. They started at the bottom, learned their trade and worked their way up through the ranks.

"Our apprenticeships will be exactly the same. We are reintroducing the scheme to bring in youngsters with fresh ideas who will stay with us for many years and progress through the ranks."

Each trainee will be guided by a mentor and a sponsoring manager, with the scheme designed to closely mirror the company's successful graduate training programme.

Communications manager Sean Tandy began his career with the then Yorkshire Water Authority in 1976, as an apprentice plumber.

He said: "When I left school at 16 I had three job offers and chose Yorkshire Water because of the prestige of being part of a big organisation and the structured apprenticeship scheme it was running.

"I completed that with City & Guilds qualifications and, being timed served, had the competence to work on a wide range of plumbing work, where I gained the experience needed to progress.

"As a former apprentice I thought it was a great pity when they were phased out, and I'm delighted Yorkshire Water is bringing them back."