I SEE that Rossendale Council has dropped down a gear on proposals for the compulsory use of bathing cossies in the sauna suite at Haslingden Baths after two blokes got up to sexual hanky panky in the buff there.

It turns out the place was listed as a meeting point in a gay magazine.

A witness to the naughty event was Valley councillor Jeff Cheetham, a card-carrying regular at the sauna, who tells us: "These incidents have caused some discomfort for members."

Oh, really? His words, not mine.

But will the notion of enforced wearing of swimwear in this steamy spot reduce or make more difficult repetition of such randyness?

Now, instead of being steamrollered into operation, the proposal is being put to the ballot of its card-holding members.

The idea is dressed up as a means of sparing the blushes of the sauna attendant if he or she is not the same sex as the people using the place.

Well, of course, nudity is an indisputable part of the sauna bath ethos, is it not?

And, considerations of modesty and morality apart, it might literally be a rash departure if folk are forced to sweat out their sessions in a pair of woolly trunks or a bathing suit.

May I suggest a compromise solution; one which might let the customary nakedness continue without any members running the risk of further discomfort through exposure to more hot-stuff intimacy?

Namely, the availability to users, on request, of stout barge poles.