War on pub yobs

The scheme was set up in Accrington in December 2001 year, with 16 pubs taking part. It now has 26 members and organisers plan to expand it further because of its success in alerting licensees to potential troublemakers.

The number of people banned has been as high as 52, but some who were on the list have had their cases reviewed after a year and allowed back into the pubs.

The scheme was extended to Great Harwood in March and the latest scheme, in Oswaldtwistle, will go live next Monday. It will include 10 pubs initially although Accrington's licensing officer PC Les Sholicar says every pub in the town has expressed interest.

"It's working really well. The licensees give very good reports and the undesirables are conspicuous by their absence.

"After a while they tend not to even try to get into the pubs. At present we make photographs available to the licensees and their staff but we are not comfortable with a rogues gallery.

"The scheme is run by them with the assistance of the police rather than vice versa."

But he said several smaller schemes across the borough, affiliated to each other would be more manageable than one large scheme.

"They do take a lot of setting up so we don't want to bite off more than we can chew. I would hope in the next 12 months we could have several independent schemes running across the whole of Hyndburn with them affiliated to each other rather than have one large scheme because that may be unmanageable."

Pubs in Church had also expressed interest in setting up a similar scheme, he said.

Deputy Labour leader Councillor David Myles welcomed the news. "The scheme is working very well in Accrington. If someone gets barred from one pub they are barred from the lot.

"The scheme has gone to Great Harwood and once it is sorted there it will come out to the rest of the borough.

"It's just the logistics of the thing. They are doing training sessions with door staff and landlords to show them exactly what to do."