ACCRINGTON town centre will be protected by a mobile police station over the festive season, it has been revealed.

It will be based on Broadway, giving officers a central facility for the first time in years.

The mobile 'cop shop' is expected to be manned by one or two officers and will act as a drop-in facility for the public.

Sergeant Mark Porter, of Accrington Police, said: "We have used the mobile police station in the past but because of the regeneration work that was going on we haven't always been able to site it in a prominent location.

"We are still negotiating with headquarters and a lot of people across the county want it at various times." Each year the police run an operation to try and cut Christmas crime through raising their profile in the town centre and offering crime prevention tips.

Last Christmas, crime rates doubled in Accrington compared to the previous year. During the festive season's Operation Ebeneezer, police recorded 24 incidents of violent crime and 34 shoplifting offences, but put the rise down to methods of recording crime.

Sergeant Porter said: "It's a big reassurance exercise in that people can see there are officers right in the centre of the town.

"It puts people off shoplifting when they can see it's there. But it's also useful for people to bob into to do anything from having a chat with a policeman or to report lost children or minor crimes they might have suffered."