SOME may have considered it an extreme step when, last month, tenants in two trouble-torn East Lancashire communities were threatened with eviction if their children persisted in drinking in the streets.

But it is a warning that has evidently worked -- because of the possibility of such severe punishment.

Indeed, so effective has it been and so welcome was it to residents in the Bank Top and Wensley Fold areas of Blackburn plagued by drink-fuelled juvenile nuisance that the clampdown may now be extended across Blackburn and Darwen.

No doubt problem-plagued householders elsewhere in East Lancashire would be glad of such action in their neighbourhoods.

It is, of course, evident that, for the drive to work, the threat of eviction by social landlord Twin Valley Homes, which took over the towns' council houses two years ago, could not to be dismissed as empty words.

And that, surely, ensured by the company making clear that it was determined not to put up with anti-social behaviour when, six months ago, it evicted a woman who refused to keep her garden tidy.

Such may be severe measures. But they uphold the right of respectable, law-abiding tenants to a decent quality of life and a pleasant environment and, in the case of juvenile nuisance, they quite rightly make parents responsible for the behaviour of their children.

It's tough, but fair, action -- and deserves to be widespread across our region.