PRESTON was plunged into chaos on Friday following an anthrax scare in the town centre.

A suspect envelope, leaking powder, was sent to the Armed Forces Careers Office on Fishergate, starting a massive operation by emergency services.

Fishergate was closed to traffic from around 10am and pedestrian access was limited.

Lancashire Fire and Rescue service, and Lancashire ambulance service, rushed to the scene with their hi-tech chemical incident unit, ready to treat the 24 members of staff from the careers office, who deal with inquiries about jobs in the RAF and Royal Navy.

At around 1pm treatment of the staff began. Workers emerged from the back of the careers office in Charnley Street, to be led through an inflatable decontamination tent, into a waiting mini bus.

From there they headed to the office of goodwill charity the Samaritans on St Wilfrid Street, for medical treatment.

But emergency services believed the package to be a hoax.

Barry Graham, Assistant Divisional Officer at Lancashire Fire and Rescue, acting as Incident Support Commander, said: "We now believe the threat to be a hoax but we could not be sure so were forced to treat it seriously.

"The ambulance crews are decontaminating the workers as a precautionary measure."

The town was re-opened by police at around 2.30pm.