STREET crime in Lancashire has fallen by 11 per cent since April.

The latest figures from the Home Office come after the first six months of a national street crime initiative involving Lancashire Constabulary and nine other police forces.

"Residents in Blackpool have already reaped the benefits of these operations with crime down in all categories," said Detective Chief Superintendent Mike Barton.

"Since the street crime initiative began in April we have seen a steady fall in the number of robberies and all indications are that this success is continuing.

"We aim to continue the good work to try and ensure the downward trend is maintained. Back in April we made it quite clear that our county figures demonstrated that street robbery was not a significant problem in Lancashire when compared to the metropolitan forces.

"However, we recognised that one robbery was one too many which is why we decided to concentrate on targeting drug dealing which we consider to be at the root cause of most robberies in the county."

He said the government set a target of nil growth but they had improved on that with an 11 per cent reduction.

"Operations like 'Tower' have taken our drugs fight to the very front line, allowing us and our partners to make offenders change their life-style and accept treatment."