POLICE have issued public safety warnings after two separate incidents involving dummy weapons sparked panic on the Fylde coast earlier this week.

In the first incident staff and visitors were forced to evacuate for three hours after a refuse collector delivered a hand grenade to St Annes Police Station on Monday afternoon.

The grenade was discovered earlier in the day as the council worker emptied bins in Saltcotes Road in Lytham. He then transported the weapon more than four miles past homes and businesses to the station.

Officers immediately evacuated the premises and sealed off roads in the St Andrew's Road North and St George's Road area before contacting the forces bomb disposal experts who helped a team to disable the object by phone. The grenade was later identified as a dud.

A police spokesman, Sergeant Emyr Pritchard said: "Anyone who comes across any weapon like this in the future is asked to leave it alone and contact the police immediately.

"Fortunately, in this situation, the grenade was a dud but next time we may not be so lucky.

"We are also very keen to trace the owner of the grenade as we need to know exactly how it came to be in the bin and if there are likely to be any more uncovered."

The second incident occurred at around 3pm on Monday afternoon when a female tourist reported three men walking along the beach at South Promenade carrying a pair of handguns.

Police arrived at the scene to seize the guns which were later described as "very good" replicas.

The three men - who hail from the Buckingham area - were each given an £80 fixed penalty notice under section five of the Public Disorder Act.

Sgt Pritchard added: "There is very little to identify these weapons as replica guns.

"In fact it's very difficult for even trained eyes to differentiate between these and the genuine article.We would urge anyone who spots anybody carrying one of these guns to contact us immediately as was the case in this incident.

"We would also like to send out a warning to anyone who purchases one of these weapons.If you show them off in public there will be very serious consequences.

"It is a waste of police time to be called out to deal with these kind of incidents.

"Officers will not hesitate to impose another fixed penalty fine or worse."