POLICE are establishing better links with the Friends of Sunnyhurst Wood to combat anti-social behaviour in the area.

The Friends and Blackburn with Darwen Council have established monthly meetings with community beat officers to discuss problem areas in the popular beauty spot. A similar scheme has been pioneered at Blackburn's Corporation Park.

Dave Page, community parks development officer, said: "We now have incident sheets that will be made available to everyone who wants one. It is important to record any sort of incident that you are concerned about.

"If anything serious happens, the police should be called but if it's a question of children hanging around and causing a nuisance, you can note it down and if the police respond, write down what action they took.

"We then collect the forms and the idea is that we go through it with the police and see where the problem areas are and what we need to target.

"We can then look at solving the problems and even preventative methods to stop it happening in the first place.

"Corporation Park is much safer as a result of this scheme."

Dennis Gillibrand, Friends chairman, said: "We welcome this initiative because there are always problems with groups of teenagers hanging around the area and causing a nuisance and making noise."

Less than a month ago, firefighters issued a warning to teenagers urging them to stop lighting bonfires in the woods.

Sgt Anne Scott, police co-ordinator for Darwen, said: "This is something we would welcome and I had a lot of involvement with the Friends of Corporation Park scheme which has worked very well.

"It will really help cut down anti-social behaviour in the woods. But people should not be discouraged from calling the police if they think it is really necessary."