Emergency teams set for new millennium

All police leave has been cancelled so that extra officers can be on hand to tackle any problems relating to the 36-hour drinking period to celebrate the new Millennium.

Extra cells will be available if needed.

Plans are being prepared to deal with any eventuality caused by failure of equipment due to the Millennium "bug'' as part of Operation Goldmine.

Members of all the emergency services, the health authority, Burnley Health Trust, local councils, social services, St John Ambulance, Rossendale Search and Rescue, WRVS and others met at Burnley Police Station for an all-day seminar to examine their readiness to tackle any problems.

Pennine Division operations manager Supt Gary Stephenson said: "Essentially we are looking at the critical period between 2pm on Friday, December 31 and 2pm on Saturday, January 1, 2000.

"It is an event we have never had to police before and which includes a 36-hour drinking period.

"There is also the potential threat from the Millennium bug affecting private and public sector industries.

"Our primary concern is public safety. A host of services are here today to address events which may or may not happen. "Obviously we don't want to frighten people and our hope is that all the planning, time and effort we are putting into it is not actually used.

"We just don't know what will happened but we are doing our best to be ready for anything.''

All police leave has been cancelled and significantly higher numbers of staff will be available to deal with any problems.

Sgt Dave Croll said it was not yet known whether pubs would remain open for the 36 hours. He said: "Some may be open the full time and others may be closed.

"It could be that with such a long opening period we will get a drip effect with people leaving at different times rather than all at the same time in the early morning like we get now.''

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.