THE inside story of having a beautifully safe launderette has won high praise for town hall staff they used to call the nuisance men.

Environmental health officers based in Padiham got a pat of the back from the Health and Safety Commission for the way they work with commercial businesses to keep tabs on the latest rules.

The idea flourished when Andy Howard and his colleagues went to work on the need to explain the requirements of the new health and safety legislation in service industries such as shops and warehouses.

Mr Howard said: "Launderettes were chosen because they all had similar work activities and, at that time, had not been inspected recently.

"Explaining the changes in regulations while undergoing an inspection can often be a time consuming exercise, so we decided to hold a seminar to talk about the health, safety and welfare issue before inspections."

The business-friendly approach meant that when launderettes were later visited the inspections did not take as long and there was an improved working relationship between the proprietors and the health inspectors.

Recently, environmental teams from Burnley and Pendle combined their expertise to offer butchers an insight into health recommendations after the E-coli outbreak in Scotland.

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