THE introduction of community support officers will help to build up communities and people's quality of life, MP for Blackpool South Gordon Marsden told the House of Commons last week.

Mr Marsden was backing the Police Reform Bill, which received its second reading at Westminster.

The controversial bill has been designed to modernise and improve the police service as a whole and provide more effective strategies for dealing with anti-social behaviour and juvenile nuisance.

This is to be implemented through a complex and detailed set of reforms that include the introduction of community support officers to carry out certain police duties and the accreditation and link-ups with such schemes as neighbourhood watch.

Mr Marsden explained: "The proposals are all about the community joining together to tackle these anti-social behaviour problems.

"The bill is not saying that every police force must have community support officers but that where police duties are already over-stretched in dealing with low level nuisance they will be able to get funding for help in the form of community safety wardens."

In the Commons Mr Marsden argued how the new bill's proposals could be best implemented in Blackpool. He said: "I welcome the proposals to increase civilian help which will I hope enable the police to be more sensitive and responsive to home calls.

"A lady in my constituency was asked, when a crowd of youths were jumping up and down on her elderly husband's car, whether it was a 'life-threatening situation'. The police felt that, if it was not, they could not go and deal with it. I do not want to see more examples of that."

He went on: "What people in my community in Blackpool who are not in the tourist area want is a dedicated presence of police or police support to provide the necessary reassurance. At present, inevitably, many of those who are present must be taken away to deal with town centre problems at the weekends.

"I have seen how people in Blackpool are made vulnerable by problems such as transience, a relatively skewed demography causing more young and elderly persons to feel at risk, the effect of vandalism on small businesses and aggressive street behaviour.

"In that context the anti-social behaviour officers are not just a response to public concern but they enable time to be 'freed up'."

Mr Marsden added: We need community support officers to provide that intensive day-to-day reassurance -- to provide that local input."