WYRE Council is pressing ahead with plans for two mobile CCTV vans to help the crime-fight.

The new Conservative council voted to axe the previous Labour administration's plans for a £715,000 system of 39 fixed cameras, despite a 6,000-name petition calling for it to be saved.

Labour leader Coun Richard Anyon, who helped collect the petition in just five days, was angry: "Given the best will in the world, two camera-vans available only eight hours a day will never equal 39 cameras monitored 24 hours a day," he said.

"People wanted this scheme, I had an enormous response to the petition, shops and businesses were asking for copies for their customers to sign."

But Conservative leader Pat Catlow said they had to be prudent - the costs of the previous scheme would have been "crippling" at £269,000 a year to run.

Coun Anyon replied that it had all been allowed for in this year's council budget. "At 14p a week for a Band D council taxpayer I don't think that's an extravagant amount for a system which would have been most effective in the fight against crime."

Due to be run in partnership with Wyre Housing Association, Coun Anyon said other partnerships with businesses in future years would have helped fund the running costs.

Wyre Council is now joining with the police in a joint bid for Home Office funding to help pay for two CCTV vans which would patrol town centres and rural areas.

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